Tag Archives: mini quilt

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Two years ago I made class quilts with the kindergarteners at school when my son was in kindergarten. Last year another parent took the reigns and and this year it was my turn again, since my daughter is in kindergarten this year.

I decided to do something a little more complicated this year. Since I was really enjoying seeing all the Village quilt blocks on instagram I ordered a copy of the pattern for the kids to each sew a house block. They made fingerprint art a la Ed Emberley on the doorway fabric with their teachers and I led them through piecing their blocks. (The maker's names are on each doorway as well, but they have been removed for the blog post.)

The kids are at a montessori school, so sewing has been part of their curriculum for the last three years. By kindergarten they are all comfortable using needle and thread. To help them with their piecing, I use a frixion pen to mark the 1/4" seam on the wrong side of each fabric to help the kids keep their running stitch in a straight line. I pin together the two layers of fabric to keep them organized. Some kids take tiny microscopic stitches and some take 1/2" long stitches, but it all gets the job done.

Aren't the blocks adorable!? Once each child finished hand piecing their quilt blocks I brought them home to give them a good press, sew them together, and finish the quilts.

I was sure to get a good shot of the quilt sandwich before I added the binding. When I taught the kids about the parts of a quilt they got a kick out of the phrase "quilt sandwich." I told them that the top and bottom fabrics were like the bread and the batting was like the... whatever you like on your sandwich. One student asked nearly every time I saw him if I had added the peanut butter and jelly yet. ;-)

I opted for echo quilting bordering each house and my daughter helped me pick the zen chic blue dot fabric for the binding. These adorable quilts are about 16" x 15". They were finished and hanging on the classroom walls in time for Mother's Day Tea.

 

Just for fun, here I am with the portrait of myself that my daughter drew for the Mother's Day Tea on Friday.

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including batting from Hobbs and thread from Aurifil.

This month's Island Batik challenge for the Ambassadors was Try a Technique. I immediately knew that I wanted to try my first color wash quilt. I've been inspired by the work of Jaye Lapachet (Fabric of the Year 2013, 2014, 2016) and Timna Tarr (Gallery). I chose the Island Batik Mountain's Majesty Stack of 10" squares since it had such a great variety of values.

My units were constructed with 1" circles fused on 3" squares of fabric. Size was dictated by what I could get out of 10" squares. I cut six 3" squares from each of 21 fabrics and put fusible (I used Misty Fuse) on a section big enough to cut out six 1" circles per fabric. I began by using an AccuQuilt Go (borrowed from a friend) to cut out 6 circles from each of the 21 fabrics. I'd used die cut systems for paper over the years, but this was the first time using the AccuQuilt or cutting fabric with a die. It was a quick and easy way to cut out 126 circles... and for them to be perfectly round!

At that point I created my units randomly. I chose a circle at random from my tin to fuse onto the center of each square.

I used the system I learned in Lyric Kinard's class for fusing, by putting the pieces inside a folded sheet of parchment paper. With parchment on top and bottom of my fabrics I didn't need to worry about getting the fusible on my iron or my ironing board.

Once I created my 126 units I organized them by value. I use a black and white image of fabrics to detect slight value differences. In this case I organized them into five sections by value.

Then I started with the leftmost pile and began laying out my pieces on the design wall. (No process photos here.) I started in the upper left and arranged the pieces so that there were no squares of like fabrics touching on an edge (touching on corners was okay). I ignored the fabrics on the circles. I moved down and to the right as I went through each pile. I had five extra squares which helped with making everything work out since I had extra to swap in if there was a problem area.

I love how a project on the design wall shrinks up as it is pieced.

And finally...

I'm super happy with this mini, which is 28" square, and I'll totally be playing with color wash again! I have some simple quilting in mind, but I'd love to hear how you'd quilt this. It's worth noting that I didn't stitch on my circles after fusing so the quilting needs to hold them in place. ;-)

Thanks for visiting!

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I decided to go simple and small for this week's Project QUILTING theme of A Stitch in Time.

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including products from Aurifil.

This week I was working on two other Island Batik projects, a super secret rep sample of a not-yet-released collection that I'll just say is full of saturated color -- just what I love, and my March "try a technique" project which I'm using my Mountain's Majesty 10" stack for. The stack includes two each of 21 fabrics. (The full line has 46 fabrics!) I prepped my fabric for that project and used about 3/4 of one set of the squares, leaving me a scrap pile of rectangles, one piece of each of the 21 fabrics. I'd already decided to go simple for this week's Project QUILTING challenge and had landed on a 9-patch block mug rug. Ya know... cause A Stitch in Time... Saves... Nine. The Mountain's Majesty collection is a beautiful assortment of neutrals, blues, greens, and purples. I'll be using it all in this month's Island Batik challenge. But for my PQ challenge, I chose my nine favorite prints from the pile to make my 9-patch. I especially love that deep purple in the top left!

I opted for a pillowcase binding and super simple quilting. Just a border around the edge and a square echoing the center square on the 9-patch. The quilting was done with Aurifil 40wt Light Blue Grey (#2610). It is backed with Aspen Leaves in Leprechaun and finished at 8"x8".

I'm linking up to Project QUILTING 9.5. Be sure to check out all the submissions and vote for your favorites (starting Sunday). (Mine is #24.)

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