Tag Archives: mini quilt

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This week our challenge was to take inspiration from the colors of the sky, but exclude or use less than 10% of the usual blue. When I saw the prompt, my first thought was sunset colors. I ended up looking through my sunset photos and chose one from a recent trip to LA where I hung out with my friend Courtney while we walked around Manhattan Beach.

I pulled yellow and orange fabrics and the pile sat on my ironing board for days. I didn’t really have a plan. And I am teaching four days this week so I was kind of busy. This morning I taught the first half of Building an Improv Toolbox, my favorite workshop, and one of the last things we did in class was improv blocks with lines radiating from the corners. I teach tomorrow morning so I knew that if I was going to make something for Project QUILTING this week it had to be today. I decided I would use this improv technique. I really wanted to make a composition that had numerous blocks in it, but I knew that I did not have the time for piecing and quilting and binding a larger project so I went super simple. My mini quilt is one improv quilt block, trimmed to about 7“ x 8“ quilted with batting and then pillowcase bound with a piece of backing fabric. It went together pretty quickly, except for the hand stitching to close the top edge.

There were over 225 participants for the first challenge and at the time I'm writing this there are over 150 submissions this week. Click on over and take a look.

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up on Kim's blog for the Project QUILTING Sky Colors challenge. Congratulations to everyone else who participated in the challenge this week. Next challenge drops on February 4th.

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I'm so excited for season 15 of Project QUILTING to be underway.

I pieced my improv bird house and then pivoted to people houses for my improv piecing demo at Northern California Quilt Council this past week. Here's what my design wall looked like last weekend.

I cut out nine more houses during my demos that are stacked up waiting to be sewn. I'm excited to get those together and watch the neighborhood on my design wall grow. I finished my bird house into a mini quilt by adding a fused appliqué circle and free motion quilting.

My quilt is approximately 9" x 8" and is finished with a faced binding. Since I didn't have a bird on the front I chose an Alison Glass print with birds and bees for the back.

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up on Kim's blog for the Project QUILTING Bird House challenge. Congratulations to everyone else who participated in the challenge this week. Next challenge drops on January 21st.

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This week the Project QUILTING challenge is Sew Not a Square. Specifically, the quilt could not be a square or have any squares in it's composition. "use no square shapes in doing it"

I was out of town until Monday evening on my trip to QuiltCon and came down with symptoms and tested positive for Covid on Tuesday evening {whomp whomp} so I've been isolating from my family. I've also had limited energy as you can imagine. I still wanted to participate in this week's challenge so I grabbed a few supplies from my studio to bring into isolation.

When starting a quilt challenge with just a day left until the deadline, it is wise to think of how to get it done. Here were my rules for myself.

▪️Work very small.
▪️Limit options.
▪️Don’t overthink it.

I knew it would all be hand stitched. And I decided I would make it round. I began by cutting out a small circle from my batting (not sure why I didn't trim after the piecing). Then I pieced my smallest, irregular scraps using pearl cotton thread.

Once I was done stitching the quilt top I trimmed the backing fabric, and then the quilt top, to match the batting circle.

Once it was all trimmed, I cut strips of fabric a bit wider than 1/4" on a bias and stretched the strips a bit to fray the edges. Then I used more pearl cotton to kind of couch my fabric strips over the raw edge of my quilt. I'm not sure what to call the stitching I used... is it a blanket stitch?

1084 days from the start of the pandemic to my first case. (I'm thankful that after a few days I'm starting to improv.) And I have never made what I have considered a Covid Quilt or Pandemic Quilt... so this is My Little Covid Quilt. It's about 2 inches in diameter.

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up on Kim's blog for the Project QUILTING Sew Not a Square challenge.

As a longtime participant of Project QUILTING, I'm excited to be a sponsor this year. Each week as a Weekly Sponsor I have contributed a PDF pattern to one winner. I'm also a Grand Prize Sponsor. The prize is a spot in one of my self-hosted open enrollment live virtual workshops.

Happy quilting!