Hello Reader,

Have you ever had so many ideas that you weren't sure which direction to go?

After spending much of 2025 in a fog, handling my mother's estate and processing her death, at the time, even the simplest sewing projects seemed overwhelming.

As the fog slowly lifted, I started feeling more like myself. My sewjo returned in spurts, and I was able to start thinking about and planning the next Scrap Summit.

This past month, I've been focused on bringing together an amazing group of teachers who will teach some incredible classes at the November online event.

Communicating with the 2026 Scrap Summit teachers has gotten my wheels turning about my own business, The Ruffled Purse, and changing things up.

I have so many ideas, I'm not sure which direction to go.

I would love to get your input and maybe even talk to you to find out how I can best help you with your sewing and quilting.

Please keep an eye out early next week for an email from me about how you can share your thoughts. I really want to hear what you have to say.

Two quilts

For the past few months, I've been working on a couple of quilts for Chris, a young mother from my church who wants to incorporate her two daughters' baby clothes into a quilt for herself and another for her mother.

The quilt she picked for herself consists of 6.5-inch cut pinwheels (finished 6-inch) alternating with solid blocks. The quilt for her mother consists of two hearts made from 3-inch cut squares (finished 2.5 inches).

I've finished both quilt tops and am now prepping them for quilting, but I had a couple of things I wanted to share with you.

1. Pinwheel quilt

If you're not familiar with the pinwheel block, it's made up of four half-square triangles sewn together in a four-patch.

Because of the way it's constructed, there is a lot of bulk in the center of the pinwheel.

Since I wasn't sure how this quilt was going to be quilted as I was putting it together, I wanted to minimize as much bulk as possible.

I found an excellent tutorial by Rachel Rossi on how to get the center of the pinwheel block as flat as possible.

If you have ever wondered how to make the middle of a pinwheel block less bulky, I encourage you to take a look at the tutorial.

My favorite part of the process was seeing the teeny-tiny pinwheel in the center. Isn't it cute!

2. Heart quilt

The heart quilt was inspired by a large single heart quilt Chris found on Pinterest that measured 102"x 102".

Chris wanted a smaller quilt with 2 hearts - one for each daughter.

In the photo she shared with me, I could see the heart was constructed of squares, so I pulled out some graph paper and started to draw.

I created two drawings:

• one was a square (finished quilt size 57.5" x 57.5")
• the other was a rectangle (finished quilt size 57.5" x 67.5")

She went with the rectangle.

Most of the baby clothes were knit, so I knew they would need to be fused to interfacing to provide stability when cutting and sewing them together.

From a construction standpoint, the things I needed to figure out were:

• how many squares and half-square triangles would it take to make each heart
• determine how to put the heart together
• decide on the best way to cut the background fabric
• figure out how to put all the pieces together

This was such a fun quilt to make, and it's a great project for scraps. I want to share with you how to make it.

The directions for the Two Hearts quilt are not super detailed. They provide the bare bones of what you need to know, along with supporting diagrams.

You need to have some understanding of piecing and putting together a quilt top for the directions to make sense.

Most of the process is pretty straightforward.

The part that strained my brain was the dimensions needed for each of the background pieces. I actually cut the pieces too large initially because my math was wrong, and I had to cut them down. (Thank goodness, I didn't cut them too small!)

Figuring out the dimensions was a great learning experience.

I didn't want to give you the wrong dimensions for the larger non-heart pieces, so the directions do not include the sizes to cut this background fabric.

However, I've provided enough information that you will be able to successfully experience some learning too. 😁

Please email me if you have any questions about the directions.

I wrote them out along with some diagrams to help, but if anything is unclear, I'm just an email away.

➡️ Click HERE to get the directions for the Two Hearts quilt.

Sewing Letters

Because the quilts include baby clothes from both of her daughters, Chris asked that I keep their clothes separated in the quilt construction.

This way, when they are using the quilts, the girls can find the pieces of clothing that were their own.

This was easy for the heart quilt. Each girl has their own heart.

For the pinwheel quilt, one half is the clothing of one daughter, and the other half belongs to her sister.

For this quilt, I will embroider each girl's name at the halfway point, so they know which pinwheels are theirs.

To personalize the Two Hearts quilt, I used a freezer paper appliqué technique to create letters out of their clothes to spell their names.

You can see these letters arranged along a curve of each heart in the photo of the quilt posted above.

The freezer paper technique is my favorite way to make custom letters to fit any project.

Are you interested in learning how to make letters to personalize projects?

In my on-demand class, Sew Many Letters, I walk you step-by-step through the entire process.

This is such a fun way to create letters to add words and phrases to your projects.

💕 Good news! I'm running a special price this month on Sew Many Letters.

➡️ Use the code SMLSAVE10 at checkout and save $10 off the regular price until the end of April.

Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in the poll last month about the 2026 Scrap Summit, because it made the decision easy.

The dates have been set!

Put November 9-12 on your calendar so you can conquer your fabric scraps!

➡️ To be notified as soon as registration opens for the free online event, you can add your name to the waitlist.

In the last Snappy Scissors newsletter, I shared that Pola from Pola Quilting was close to hitting 10K subscribers on her YouTube channel, and I wanted to help her reach her goal.

At the time I sent out the newsletter, she was at 9.85K. Over the next few days, I found myself checking back frequently and refreshing the page to see the subscriber number finally stop increasing at 9.92K.

If you were one of the 70 people who checked out her channel and subscribed, thank you. You helped her close the gap by almost half!

I checked today, and subscribers dipped a tiny bit and are currently at 9.91K. I also discovered a playlist I hadn't seen before - Tips & Tricks Bite Size Addition.

Most of these informational videos are less than a minute. I watched several and learned some new things.

I invite you to check out Pola's channel and subscribe if you like what she is sharing. I would love to see her reach 10K.

That's all for now. Until next time...

P.S. Remember to keep an eye out for the email I'll send out early next week. I can really use your input on the next steps for The Ruffled Purse.​

P.P.S. Are you new to the Snappy Scissors newsletter? Check out past issues HERE.