Circles

A few weeks ago I was feeling the winter blahs and did a little online shopping to cheer myself up.  I like to check out the Daily Deal at the Missouri Star Quilt Company each day.  I used to be tempted by their sales on a regular basis, but over the last year or more I have been able to resist for the most part.  I did cave in to these gadgets that were a recent Daily Deal, though.  I rationalized it by convincing myself it was okay because I wasn't actually buying fabric.

I purchased this circle cutting template and the tiny Olfa rotary cutter to go with it.  Last weekend I decided I was going to try out my new tools.  I really liked the Drunkard's Path quilt that was shown demonstrating these items, so I planned to make a small scale project with a charm pack that I had in my stash.  I bought the blue dot batik fabric at the Little Foot Shoppe to coordinate.

The charm pack (Hoffman Fabrics Lorikeet) was 5" batik fabric squares, and the circle fabric I fused Heat N Bond to and cut into 4" squares.  I planned to fold the 4" squares in half and then cut out a 3" circle using the new template.  

My first disappointment was that the tiny rotary cutter that was recommended to be purchased to use with the template was just a little too small, and the blade would not reach down far enough to cut the fabric.  How did Jenny Doan make this work in her video?  What a bummer, and I was all geared up to work on this project that day.  So I reluctantly made a trip to JoAnn Fabrics for matching thread and a bigger smallish cutter.  I bought the Fiskars cutter which worked just fine.  A regular size rotary cutter blade is too big to make the curves of this template.

I centered and fused the circles on the squares.  Then I did a stitch around the circles to applique them down.  The next step is to cut them in half and then half again.

I then had a bunch of 2.5" squares to sew together.  You can find many different layout possibilities if you do a quick Google or Pinterest search.  Some of the layouts have an obvious staggered look, hence the name Drunkard's Path.  This is what I decided upon.

So far I have half of them sewn together.  I really love the colors in this fabric pack.  They are a perfect reminder of summertime right now in the middle of winter.

I liked using the circle cutting template.  The only other disappointment (the same one I have with any quilting template that isn't Creative Grids) is that it isn't made by Creative Grids :-)  I guess this is going to be a table runner, and I will say that the Heat N Bond makes the fabric a little stiff.  I would recommend using the lightest weight fusible you can on a project like this.  Since this isn't meant to be a cuddly quilt that's not a problem here.

Even though this is only a half finish, I'll link up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.  Thanks for visiting!