Pinwheel Lanyard

Does your quilt guild or other organization have name tags? Are they boring plastic, paper or write-on stickers? Or have you created your own wearable work of art to serve as a name tag? Our guild encourages people to make their own name tags. So for the past few months, I have had it on my bucket list to make one.

Since today was our first snow day of the season, it was the perfect day to tackle my name tag project. I decided to use scraps from the last quilt top I finished – fabric, batting and thread. Since the quilt had lots of half square triangles, flying geese and other triangular pieces, I had loads of little triangles, which had been snipped while making the quilt. These little triangles (less than 2-inches) made beautiful little pinwheels. I added a little sashing and a cornerstone to make a sweet little block/quilt. It measured six-inches square.

To embellish the block, I used a variety of decorative stitches on my Viking Sapphire sewing machine. I even tried my hand at free-motion quilting on my Viking. It seemed silly to put such a small quilt on my longarm :). The block was spruced up with a few beads from my growing collection….

The six-inch block seemed a bit large for a pin, so it morphed into a lanyard with a hidden pocket on the back of the quilt. The pocket is big enough for a phone, business cards, or a change purse. For the lanyard strap, I repurposed extra binding strips, which were sewn into a tube and attached between the quilt square and pocket. If you are interested in more instructions on how to make one of these, please let me know.

Laureen’s Name Tag

Overall, I was pleased with my day’s work and creative use of small pieces. How have you repurposed small scraps from a project?

Happy Quilting

Laureen