Birthstone Quilt-a-Long 2018

Some of you may know about the Gift Marker's~

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394448104144292/)

A few years ago at Christmas time I was so overwhelmed with how many gifts I need to finished. Several girlfriends were in the same boat. So I started the GM's, each month we make a gift and put it away. It can be for any occasion or holiday. It was amazing when next Christmas came along and we had so many gifts already done. I had only planned to try it out for a year....but several members asked to keep it going....so we have.
We are a small group of 9 gals. We are all very different and spread out across the U.S., our one and only Canadian is in Newfoundland. We love you Glenda :) These are some amazing woman to have in my corner. We have cheered each other on, talked out issue with both sewing and life.

This year we are doing a Quilt-a-Long~ I was trying to decide what to do. I ran across this FQ pack and said to myself "there are 12 of these black tone-on-tone, 12 months.......what about the Birthstones.

This is how it all started. Another member Deb and I sat down and tossed "Ideas" around. We thought this would be a good scrap busting project. We settled on Half Square Triangles, you pick the size. You pick the neutral you like or have on hand. You can do as many or as few of each as you'd like. Deb's planning on doing a table runner. I'm planning a quilt size project.

We set out to collect of scrapes. These are my choices from both yardage and scraps~

I also had a pack of 2 1/2 inch Thangles I'd bought and never used.....no brainer !!! They're quick and easy to use.

January's birthstone is Garnet. I like using these Thangles~

Just lay out  the strips and sew on the dotted line. Once you're done then you cut them into rectangles.

Then they are cut in half using the solid line. These really couldn't get much easier. I would use them again.

You just press to the dark side. Pinch seam with your fingers, pull off the paper pieces and you're finished with the square.

These are my February square which are Amethyst. I'm doing 50 for each month. Hope 600 if these little guys will make a good size lap quilt.

  

Feel free to join in on our Q.A., there are so many pretty HST quilts out there. These are just a few that I really liked.

 I'm really excited to see how these all turn out