Random practice pieces

I generally don't like to make practice pieces. I'm more the 'let's do it and see if it works out' kind of girl. But my latest hobby is quilting, and I wanted to make a baby quilt for a friend who's expecting. And a quilt is a pretty big thing to mess up, especially if it's a gift. So I decided it would probably be a good idea to practice on smaller pieces first. 

I dug into my fabric stash and pulled out some odd pieces and went online to find tutorials for quilt blocks. Sewed a bunch of squares before I decided I could probably make something useful. So I made a potholder and a placemat.

Pinwheel block. The points of the pinwheels should be pointier.

Star block.

I started with the center block and then pretty much just added more fabric around it, until I used up all of this blue leaves cotton. The evening star block was a lot of fun to make, even though I didn't manage to match up all my points perfectly. But this was a practice piece anyway. I quilted it 'stitch in the ditch' style. Learned that I should also probably practice sewing a straight line. 

Great Youtube tutorial for the Star block can be found here. 

A friend asked if I could knit her niece some baby booties. So I practiced that as well, since I've never knit anything baby sized before. I just need to present them to the friend and see if she likes this style before I knit the real thing.

OK, so that was it for the practice pieces, I'm going back to working on the actual baby quilt. I started the thing back in July, I'm almost finished now, just hand sewing the binding to the back of the quilt. It's taking forever. I'll probably bomb you with tons of pictures once I finish it completely. For now, just a little sneak peak: