When You Don't Have Enough Blocks

It happens all the time (to me). I do not typically "count the cost" before I jump in and start sewing with a quilt in mind. Then I run out of fabric to finish the number of blocks I need, say, for a 3 x 3 block quilt. That's what happened here in my Mistletoe Shark's Teeth quilt.

Under the Mistletoe: 10" blocks; 38" x 38" quilt

The fabrics are from Benartex, 2016. I made several cute items for my grandkids and they loved them. 

Mistletoe postcards

And a vest or two:

Kid's vest

I had a few scraps left over and proceeded to make some paper pieced Shark's Teeth blocks.

Mistletoe fabrics from Benartex

I used 4 different light background prints and some red, green and yellow fabrics for the spiky points. I had to get creative with that bottom center block because that's ALL I had. And I still only got 7 blocks - 7 blocks! Here's a photo of the 4 units after I removed the foundation paper.

4 parts of a 10" Shark's Teeth block

I pulled out the remaining parts of those cute panels and realized I could get TWO 10-1/2" squares that would work perfectly at the top - and they do, right?

Here's one of the other panels (from where I got the postcard motifs)

One of the two panels - for 8 of those postcards above.

And I put part of the leftover panel on the quilt back:

Mistletoe panel on back

So, now you can see how to be thrifty and save yourself a lot of angst. 7 blocks can morph into a 9 block quilt with a little ingenuity! Check out my Shark's Teeth pattern in my Etsy store. It comes with FIVE different sized blocks: 3", 4", 5", 6" and 10"!