#52 Happy New Year

#52: Happy New Year
Finished: 12/30/12
Techniques: strip piecing, couching, appliqué, raw edge appliqué, ribbons, 3-D, free-motion quilting, satin stitching.
Size: 14 x 15 1/2"

Description: The last mini-quilt of the year! And since we're heading for 2013, I created a simple festive design to ring in the new year. This one was just for fun.

The party hat and party horn were strip pieced, cut out and appliquéd onto the background with a satin stitch. The numbers for 2013 were satin stitched on using tapered ends. The confetti was made by adhering fusible web to the fabrics, cutting them into random sizes shapes and ironing them onto the background. They added a nice touch. I then couched some silver bead strings around the party hat leaving a length fairly free for the chin strap part. More beads were couched on top of the hat and by the end of the party horn. For added whimsy, I curled some silver ribbon and attached pieces to the top of the hat and end of the party horn for a 3-D effect.

Quilting was done with a loopy free motion stitch meant to simulate the path of the confetti.

Here's wishing all my good friends and family a joyous new year!  Watch for my next post for a wrap up of this year's mini-quilt project and for what I plan to do next.

#51 Poinsettia

#51: Poinsettia
Finished: 12/22/12
Techniques: Paper-piecing, free-motion quilting, machine stitches
Size: 19x19"

Description: The inspiration for this mini-quilt was the poinsettia fabric used in the border. I created the central poinsettia design and paper-pieced it together. I could have used the same red print fabric for the entire poinsettia, but chose instead to include a second lighter red print to add a little spice to it. I like the effect. The yellow dots in the center are made from a circular machine stitch.

The flower was quilted with a straight stitch that I ran forward and backward along the leaves. Surrounding the poinsettia and in the border I used a free-motion loopy stitch.

I'm afraid I haven't taken good pictures lately. The last few mini-quilts look much better in person than in the pictures.

I apologize for the brevity of this posting, but there isn't really much else to say about this mini-quilt, and I'm busy getting ready for Christmas.

Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

Merry Christmas!

#50: Snowmen Tucked In

#50 Snowmen Tucked In
Finished: 12/15/12
Techniques: Tucks, Scalloped Binding, Fussy Cutting, 3-D
Size: 11 x 16 1/2"

Description: I got this idea from a quilt hanging up in Nana's Quilt Cottage in Old Colorado City. They had a quilt with little tucks revealing a scene and I wanted to try my hand at that. I still had some of the snowman scene that one of my quilt buddies had given me. (Those fabrics were handed to me in a pile so I'm not sure which friend gave this particular fabric to me, but thanks so much!)

I fussy cut the scene into 2 3/4" strips including seam allowances. Because of the seam allowances I couldn't cut the strips side by side, but I had several repeats I could work with so that the scene would display as a whole. I wanted to use the snowy sky part for the tucks but didn't have enough of it, so I chose a dark blue print from my stash that blended well. It's difficult to see in the picture, but there are tucks on the upper part as well, except for the column containing the house which I wanted to keep whole.

Sewing was easy once the fabric was cut; I alternated the snowman scene with the tucks. I then folded and pressed at the seams and sewed up the middle of the strips creating the tucks. I strategically bar-tacked the tucks.

Then there was an unexpected problem. Because I chose to do wide tucks, the edges of the tucks did not lay flat with the edge of the mini-quilt. I could have solved that by trimming off the edges straight, which would have worked OK with the bottom of the piece, but would have cut off the top of the house. To avoid that, I found that I could cut scallops for the columns and be able to catch all the edges.  So when I cut the binding, I cut it on the bias and bound those scalloped edges. I did the top first, which  is not as pretty. By the time I got to the bottom scallops, I'd had a little practice so they look better. I still need some practice with binding scalloped edges, but at least I added another technique for this project which is soon coming to an end.

The backing was another fabric gift from one in my quilting group. Sweet little angels.

#49 Star of Bethlehem

#49: Star of Bethlehem

Finished: 12/9/12

Techniques: Paper-piecing, free-motion quilting

Size: 32 1/2" x 22"

Description: This is a practical piece that I wanted to do as a backdrop to my snow village that I put up every year around the holidays. I have an entertainment center that my Dad built for me. Originally, I put a TV in the space, but I don't use it for that since moving to my new house. The space has a large cut-out section in back that I wanted to cover up. It's nice for cords and wires, but not very aesthetic otherwise. 

So I designed a mountain scene and put a bright shining star in the upper corner. The foreground mountain was pieced with various prints. It looks a little funky but it's ok. I designed the scene in columns for easier piecing, but I think in the future I won't do that because it doesn't look very natural to me.

It does make a nice backdrop I think, but after piecing and quilting, it needed squaring up. I originally figured the size I needed for the space, but after squaring, it came out a little narrow. (You can see the curtain rod sticking out of either end, which is unfortunate.

Quilting was done entirely free-motion, so I got some practice. Each element (snow, mountains, star, sky, rocks) was quilted with a different pattern.

The snow covered peaks are better seen in the lower picture; the camera washed out the white in the upper one.

I had fun doing this. I think I will design other backdrops for the space in the entertainment center for other holidays and seasons.

#48 Advent Calendar

#48: Advent Calendar
Finished: 11/30/12
Techniques: Pockets, Fussy Cutting, Machine Stitches
Size: 23 x27"

Description:  A couple of months ago, my friends in the CC Quilters group surprised and delighted me with gifts of several Christmas fabrics from their stashes. Adding those to my own Christmas fabrics, it didn't take me too long to come up with the idea of creating an Advent Calendar with pockets for goodies. I just had to wait for the beginning of December.

I researched Advent Calendars and found that the numbers vary: 24, 25, 26, 31 or 32, depending on what you are counting down to. The most common number is 24, so that's what I went with. I sketched out several ways to lay out 24 squares and I liked this pattern the best. I fussy-cut the 22 different pocket fabrics in rectangles and folded them over for smooth tops of the pockets. (There were 22 pocket fabrics instead of 24 because I was able to fussy-cut one fabric three different ways. Can you tell which one?) The next step was to stitch on the numbers, which I did with a satin stitch with tapered ends. I then sewed borders around each pocket and sewed them together in rows, with a white print to carry out to the edges. Binding was done with the cute candy cane fabric one of the ladies provided. Quilting was done in white thread with  a fancy machine stitch.

This was an easy one to sew, and I love it because it is so festive and because my friends thought to do something so nice for me. Thanks, ladies! And the best part is, I still have fabric leftover.

#47 Geometrics

#47: Geometrics
Finished: 11/25/12
Techniques: Partial Seams, Circular Quilting
Size: 28 x21"

Description: My stash of fabrics is sorted by types: florals, nature, solids, batiks and mottled, novelty, and geometrics, to name a few. What I call 'geometrics' are those fabrics containing stripes, plaids, ginghams, polka dots, diamonds and anything else with repeated geometric patterns.

At times during this year when I've been stuck for an idea, I've often just started looking at my stash hoping for some inspiration from the fabrics themselves. That's what I did in this case. My eye landed on my geometrics and I knew I wanted to do something with them. I plotted out a design of interwoven strips and added a few squares of others to round things out. Although it may look like some of the fabrics weave in and out, this mini-quilt was entirely pieced. To avoid breaking up the strips and to avoid sewing Y-seams, most of the piecing was done with partial seams. Considering the intricacy of all the design, I feared I might become confused as to what seam to sew next. And when I tried to plan it out in advance, it was confusing. But when I actually started sewing, I didn't get confused at all. It went very smoothly, much to my own amazement. The only difficult parts were the couple of places where there were very small pieces to piece.

Although there are some fabrics with tiny dots, there aren't any fabrics I would consider to be polka dots. None of my polka dot fabrics fit in with the color scheme. So when it came time to quilt, I decided to quilt with circles. I used different thread colors for each circle, but in hindsight it might have been better to have used only one color, green. Oh well. I drew out externally tangent circles with a pen that disappears when ironed. I used plates, glasses, lids, and other round kitchen objects to draw the circles. Then I quilted using a triple straight stitch. The circles drawn from plates left too much area un-quilted, so I added internally tangent circles to fill in. I think the quilting looks like bubbles.

#46 Bountiful Basket

#46: Bountiful Basket
Finished: 11/18/12
Technique: Tiled Piecing, Mosaic, Free-motion quilting
Size: 13" x 18 1/2"

Description: This mini-quilt combines the theme of Thanksgiving and trying to make the design look like a tiled mosaic. I am thankful for many things this year, but right now I am thankful that this mini-quilt is finished! This has proven to be the most time-consuming project to date, and one of the most difficult. I vastly underestimated the time it would take to finish this project, and in an effort to get it done in time, the work is sloppy at best and not up to my usual standards. Having said that, however, I am still very much intrigued with this technique and think it holds great potential for spectacular designs. I'll need to experiment with how to deal with the myriad of problems I encountered during the process.

My original thought was to portray a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, a typical Thanksgiving composition.  I picked out the fabrics to represent the corn, cabbage, apples, cucumber, squash, grapes, basket, sky, and grout. That was the fun and easy part. I then sketched a basic design and overlaid a grid, hoping to follow it for placement of individual pieces.

The pieces of fabric had to be small by necessity. I cut the "tile" pieces 1" square (for a finished 1/2") and I cut the "grout" lines 5/8" ( for roughly 1/8" finished width). I didn't worry too much about the evenness of the sewing, figuring the slight variances in widths would make it appear more like an actual mosaic. I sewed the pieces in columns then used long strips of the grout fabric to connect the columns.

One of the first problems I encountered was that my sketch was too small. The fruits and vegetables were just colored blobs; they needed to be bigger in order for the observer to recognized them as fruits and vegetables. At this point I should have re-done the sketch, but I thought I could get by without doing so. That was a mistake.

Another problem was that my round fruits were coming out square. I thought about replacing certain pieces with half-square triangles to round off the corners, but that would have involved a great deal more time. I decided to "fix" it in the end with circular free-motion quilting.

Because the pieces are small, there is quite a lot of bulk in the seam. As I was sewing the columns together, the mini-quilt kept rolling in on itself, making it difficult to work with. This also led to an "accordion" effect, making the piece very stretchy (and it had a great deal of rebound). This later gave me grief when I was quilting. You will notice that parts of the sky are far too wavy.

I soon realized I wasn't going to be able to finish the cornucopia design; it was going to take far too long. So I lopped off the tail and made it into a basket lying on its side.

There are parts of this design that I particularly like. The yellow squash, the grapes, and the one vertical ear of corn turned out nicely. (The other ear of corn is rather wonky.) I also like the sky, which was cut from a large scale blue gingham.

As frustrating as this project was, I want to try this technique again. I've learned quite a lot, and have a lot of ideas of what to change for the next time.

#45 Fuzzy Fish

#45: Fuzzy Fish
Finished: 11/11/12
Techniques: Chenille Effect
Size: 16 1/2" x 13"

Description: The chenille effect is created by stacking several layers of fabric having the same design, then stitching on the diagonal and cutting on the bias. For this mini-quilt, I used five layers with the bottom-most layer cut a little longer and wider than the others. Because I needed five pieces of the same design, I relied on my ever-present fish fabric. Once I stitched on the diagonal, it was relatively easy to cut the fabric by having the lowest layer a little bigger than the other layers. It assured that I wouldn't accidentally cut through all the layers.

The sewing, then, was fast and the cutting was simple. The final stage is to wash the mini-quilt to make the chenille "bloom". This proved to be the most frustrating part. I have a front loading washer, which is designed to be gentler on clothes than a top loading machine. Hence, there wasn't enough agitation to  really make the chenille bloom. It did bloom somewhat, but even after several washings and dryings, it hasn't bloomed as much as I'd hoped. I even tried brushing the chenille and agitating it further by hand. I suppose if I keep trying, it may improve.  If it does, I'll re-post and let you know.

#44 Stained Glass Iris

#44: Stained Glass Iris
Finished: 11/4/12
Techniques: Stained Glass Effect, Satin Stitch, Machine Stitches, Appliqué, Bias Binding, Oval, Batiks
Size: 12" x 15"

A Stained Glass effect mini-quilt has been on my list of projects for a while now, so it was time to give it a try. Many years ago, I took a class and learned how to create stained glass designs. It was fun, but I don't think my sense of color or design was as developed as it is today. But I have seen quilts done in a stained glass style and thought they looked pretty good.

Batiks, hand-dyed, and mottled fabrics work very well, as they emulate the subtle differences and imperfections in stained glass. Originally, I was going to use bias binding tape to simulate the lead lines holding the pieces of "glass" together. I was going to make the bias tape myself, but found it too difficult to get the narrow size I needed for the mini-quilt. So I figured a good satin stitch would work just as well.

I created the design for this iris, chose the fabrics, starched them heavily, let them dry and ironed them flat. When they're starched like that, cutting with a rotary cutter is pretty easy. I could cut the pieces from my design without regard to seam allowances, since this was basically an appliqué process. I laid them onto the sky blue fabric and used a glue stick to keep them in place.

Before actually starting the satin stitching, I used my failed narrow bias binding to lay out where I wanted the lead lines. Thinking back to the stained glass class, I knew what curves and intersections would work with glass, so I tried several permutations until I found one that was pleasing to the eye (although I think I could have done better with a few more tries). I then marked the lines with a marker that disappears when ironed, and working with batting and a heavy stabilizer, proceeded with the satin stitching.

Quilting was simple. I used a straight stitch for the sky and some machine stitches for the grassy areas. But since I had already done the satin stitching, I had to "jump" over places in the sky part of the quilt. I have to remember that stopping and starting quilting stitches in the middle of a quilt doesn't work very well, unless you leave long enough tails to tie them off in the back. I also thought about adding stitches to the iris itself, but then thought it would detract from the stained glass effect. In hindsight, I don't think I should have used the machine stitches in the grassy area either; some straight stitching probably would have sufficed. Oh well.

I had also intended on making this a rectangular piece, just as all my other mini-quilts have been. But something about the stained glass design just cried out for an oval shape. But how could I make a perfect oval? I knew that eye-balling it wasn't going to work. So I used the poster function of Microsoft Publisher and inserted an oval shape with specified dimensions, printed it off and cut out the inside of the oval. I was left with a template to frame the mini-quilt, upon which I traced the cutting line. Then I cut the black fabric on the bias to make the binding. It wrapped around the piece very nicely.

I do like the way this one turned out.

#43: Halloween

#43: Halloween
Finished: 10/25/12
Techniques: Ruth McDowell technique, freezer paper, machine stitches, curved piecing
Size: 20" x 19"

Description: I've always liked the combination of the Halloween colors of lime green, orange, purple, and black. So I pulled those colors from my stash and created this pumpkin using Ruth McDowell's technique of using freezer paper to piece the design.

The process went pretty well, but the curved pieces gave me a little trouble, probably because I was cutting a few corners in a hurry to get done.  Still, it came out pretty well.

The mini-quilt looks better in person, but one thing that shows up well is the fact that the lime green fabric with purple rectangles almost looks fluorescent!

#42 Grandpa Robbins

#42: Grandpa Robbins
Finished: 10/21/12
Techniques: Photo fabric, Applique, Echo quilting, Machine embroidery
Size: 17" x 18"

Description: My grandfather, Leroy V. Robbins, was inducted today into the National 4-H Hall of Fame for his 50 years of service as a 4-H volunteer and leader. I'm glad to honor him with this mini-quilt. He helped organize the first 4-H program in Louisiana, in East Baton Rouge Parish. One of the 4-H projects he was involved in was raising champion Southdown sheep. As a child, I remember the sheep he raised on his property, which we affectionately refer to as "Robbins Roost."

I started out by printing the 4-H motto words, "Head", "Heart", "Hands", "Health", with the machine embroidery alphabet on my sewing machine. I then traced the 4-H four-leaf clover design onto some green fabric and appliquéd it between the embroidered words.

The picture of my grandpa was the most creative part of this project. I wanted to include a picture, but I had a problem: I didn't have any photo fabric. And according to my pledge for this project, I couldn't buy anything new to create the mini-quilt. So I wondered if I could make my own photo fabric using materials at hand. And this is the reason I love the Internet! Searching "make your own photo fabric" brought up several sites. 

The simplest method I found had instructions to print off a photo by ironing freezer paper onto the back of fabric and running it through an ink jet printer. And while most sites suggested using something called "Bubble Jet Set 2000" ink fixative, one site said it wasn't necessary as long as you weren't planning on washing the project. So I gave it a try. My freezer paper didn't want to stick well to the fabric so I also used a quilt basting spray to make it stick. Then I ran it through my printer and it worked like a charm! 

I made several copies of grandpa's photo to test and practice. Sure enough, you don't want to wash it. Running it under water made all the colors run except the black. And even ironing it with steam made it fade somewhat. Ironing it without steam seemed to be OK, but I didn't iron it for very long, not wanting to press my luck  (pun intended).

Quilting was done with straight stitching and echo stitching within the four-leaf clover.

We lost Grandpa in 2006, but we all feel quite proud about his induction into the 4-H Hall of Fame.

#41 Black and White and ...

#41: Black and White and ...
Finished: 10/13/12
Techniques: Black and White, Machine Stitches, Strips
Size: 24 1/2" x 18"

Description: As much as I like working with bright colors, I've always admired black and white quilts too. Those that I've seen, especially those with splashes of color, I've found to be very striking. I hadn't thought that I had enough of a variety of black and white fabrics in my stash to create a black and white mini-quilt, but once I started looking I decided I did. And then I found that I had numerous strips of black and white, and that cinched it.

When I started creating the rectangles, I didn't like the look. Even though I tried to abut "light" black-and-whites next to "dark" black-and-whites, there was not enough definite delineation between the fabrics for my liking. So I ended up buffering different fabrics with solid whites or solid blacks and that helped a lot.

Quilting was done with a machine wave stitch. I think this will make a nice wall hanging.

#40 Trapunto Sunflower

#40: Trapunto Sunflower
Finished: 10/6/12
Techniques: whole cloth, trapunto, stippling, free-motion quilting.
Size: 12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

Description: Trapunto is the technique of sewing a design onto two layers of fabric, then cutting slits into the under-layer and inserting stuffing or batting, causing a raised effect. The slits are then hand-stitched back together. I varied from the traditional as I did not do the hand-stitching part, but rather placed the two layers (plus trapunto) onto a layer of batting and backing fabric and proceeded with the quilting. Because this is a mini-quilt, I figured I could get away with this departure.

Although I could have used printed fabric and appliqué to create the sunflower, I went with the whole cloth design in white simply for its elegance. The raised effect of the trapunto was enhanced by stippling, or a very dense meandering pattern around the sunflower. When I finished stippling, I found that it didn't get close enough to the trapunto design for my satisfaction, so I straight stitched around the outer edge of the sunflower again which provided the definition I was looking for.

I found stuffing the batting into the underside of the design very tedious work. There were a total of 80 individual slits, including the 32 tiny squares in the center of the sunflower. But as tedious as it was, I like the overall effect. This mini-quilt definitely looks better in reality than in the picture. I think a large quilt done in this design would look spectacular, but someone other than me would have to do it. (But you never know).

#39 Grandpa's Sunset Roses

#39: Grandpa's Sunset Roses
Finished: 9/30/12
Techniques: Machine embroidery, machine stitches, applique
Size: 14 1/2" x 13 1/2"

I was inspired by a new book I got from the public library, Creative Uses for Decorative Stitches by Karen Linduska. I used several of the techniques listed in her book to create this mini-quilt.

I've been remembering my grandfather's rose garden back in Maryland. When we were growing up, we would visit my grandparents' home and I loved walking through the maze of roses. My favorites were the yellow, orange and pick roses he grew. I don't know the actual name of those roses, but I called them sunset roses because of their colors.

I used the machine embroidery unit on my sewing machine and the roses design that came with it. I find that I don't often use the embroidery unit, but this project was a good opportunity. I added other machine stitches in the form of leaves and greenery. The portion of the mini-quilt to the left is done with  machine stitches sewn close together, as described in the Linduska book. It represents the maze or rows of roses of my grandpa's garden. The individual portions were sewn separately and appliquéd onto the background.

#38 Prairie Point Landscape

#38: Prairie Point Landscape
Finished: 9/23/12
Techniques: Prairie Points, Machine stitches, Free-motion quilting
Size: 30" x 15"

Description: I've made prairie points before, but just as examples. I've never incorporated them into a quilt before, so it was about time I did. I had some purple fabric with white whisps that did well for sky (it really is purple but looks blue in the photo), and I used a green leaf fabric for the grass and tan for mountains. Cutting these into strips allowed me to add many prairie points creating a stylized landscape design. I used various browns for mountains, white for snow caps, florals for fields of flowers, and rock fabric for rocks.

Before sewing, I placed the prairie points on a design board on loan from Pam Jones (thanks, Pam!). I felt it needed something more, so I added a pine tree. Once I did that, the mini-quilt was too wide for the design board, so I took advice from another quilting friend, Jan Keder, and stapled a piece of batting to the wall. It works really well too!

And still, when I looked at the landscape, there was a lot of blue sky. So I added some clouds. Because I made the prairie points at different times, I didn't realize how many I actually made until I counted them all up. There are 66 in total. I was surprised - it really didn't seem like I had made that many. They are very easy to make.

I found two methods online for making prairie points. The first was to take a square of fabric and fold diagonally, then fold again perpendicular to the hypotenuse. This creates a prairie point with a pocket on the side in which you can nest another prairie point. I used this method for the majority of prairie points. For the pine tree, I used the other method for creating a prairie point. I folded a square lengthwise, then folded down the upper corners to the bottom center.

Originally, I had intended to simply appliqué a piece of brown fabric for the tree trunk. But it didn't seem right, somehow. I wondered how to construct a tree trunk from prairie points. When a prairie point is made, there is a raw edge that is usually sewn into a seam. I could have left a raw edge and sewn over it as I did with the snow caps, but I decided to turn under the raw edge and butt prairie points next to each other and zigzag over them. It made a nice effect.

Quilting was done with machine stitches and some free-motion stitching for the sky. I bar-tacked a couple of the larger prairie points so they would stay vertical, but most were left free standing. This is one mini-quilt that looks better in person than in the picture. It was fun to do!

#37 Autumn Kaleidoscope

#37: Autumn Kaleidoscope
Finished: 9/14/12
Techniques: Stack 'n Whack, Kaleidoscope, Stitch in the Ditch Quilting, Machine Stitches
Size: 17" x 17"

Description:

backing fabric

This is the first time I've tried this kaleidoscope technique, and I really enjoyed it. The key is finding the right fabric and having enough of it to have eight repeats that you can cut out. The fabric I used for this mini-quilt is also what I used for the backing, shown here.  I like it because of the variety of fall colors.

The Stack 'n Whack method means that I had to line up eight strips of repeating print design one on top of each other as precisely as I  could. This took time, but wasn't too difficult.  I made a triangle template with 45 degrees at the apex and cut into the strips. Then I inverted the template and continued cutting out triangles. Then I sewed the triangles together to form the kaleidoscope. I even sewed a fifth kaleidoscope that I didn't include in the mini-quilt. Adding the black background was simple, and I used various machine stitches and stitched in the ditch for the quilting.

unused kaleidoscope

If you look very closely, you can see that not all the triangle wedges are identical. Even being careful trying to line up the fabrics, things get a little off. But the nice thing about the design is that you really don't notice the little errors.

I was delighted by the variety of kaleidoscopes that were formed from one fabric. But my first attempt at a fabric was not at all successful. I started out with a beer bottle fabric. I thought that the variety of colors would make an interesting kaleidoscope. I now believe that the fact that the beer bottles are isolated (or in other words, surrounded by black background), made for a poor kaleidoscope. You can start to see a slight kaleidoscope emerge, but it doesn't coalesce. I'll just have to find another use for the beer bottle fabric.

beer bottle fabric

beer bottle kaleidoscope

Having a small amount of background does seem to add to the design of the kaleidoscopes. This combined with a multi-colored print in which the images overlap would make for good kaleidoscope designs. I would very much like to make a larger quilt using this technique.

#36 Prism of 100 Squares

#36: Prism of 100 Squares
Finished: 9/8/12
Techniques: Triple stitch quilting
Size: 20" x 20"

Description:
This mini-quilt came about because, as I was looking through my stash, I noticed I had a lot of solid fabrics. I have yards of some colors, but with other colors I only have small pieces. I wondered how many different colors I actually have. So I decided to cut a 2 1/2" square from each one. Some of the colors are very similar, but if I could discern even the slightest difference in shade, hue, or texture, I cut a square of it. When I counted them up, I had a whopping 96!

Now 96 is a good number. There are many ways to divide 96: 1x96, 2x48, 3x32, 4x24, 6x16, and the one best suited for a mini-quilt - 8x12. However, looking at all the colors and knowing how I wanted to arrange them, I needed a big square. 96 is so close to 100, I wondered if I could find just four more solid colors. After all, I was just using 2 1/2" squares. So I began digging through my buckets of scraps, and I was successful! Had I kept looking, I may have found more, but I didn't want to press my luck. I would have had to find 21 additional colors in order to make an 11x11 mini-quilt, and I didn't think that was going to happen.

I wanted the arrangement to start with very light and pale colors together and a little off-center, and then radiate out to the darker colors. By starting off-center, I could give the blues and reds and pinks more space because I had more of them. I had less space for the greens, yellows, and oranges, but I had less of those colors anyway. So it all worked out. The gradation from lights to darks is not even throughout, but I think the piece is more interesting that way.

This is another instance where having a design wall would have come in handy. Hmmm. I wonder how I might accomplish that on a budget. I'll have to come up with something.

Quilting was simple: A machine triple stitch (forward, backward, forward) through the diagonals in an off-white thread. I could have quilted each square with an X but thought that might be too busy.

#35 Purple Pinwheels

#35: Purple Pinwheels
Finished: 9/1/12
Techniques: Pinwheels, Paper-Piecing, Tessellations, Stitch-in-the-Ditch quilting
Size: 18" x 14"

Description: I love this pinwheel design that I found in Quiltmaker magazine #140. The designer, Barbara Cline, wanted a way to construct tessellated pinwheels without having to sew Y-seams, and this is what she came up with.

M.C. Escher tessellated print

Tessellations are where you have repeated patterns or shapes fitting together without overlaps or gaps. You may be familiar with the works of M.C. Escher, very famous for his tessellated drawings. I've always liked his work and have often thought several could be worked into quilt designs.

In choosing a design, I tried to create a simple bird figure that would tessellate, but was unsuccessful. I found this pinwheel design though, and am quite happy with the results.

The neat thing about the design of this mini-quilt is that there is only one pattern piece: a very simple triangular piece which I drew and photocopied. I chose four different purples from my stash with enough variety between them so that each would stand out. There are twelve combinations of the triangle that you can create with four fabrics, and since there are six points to the pinwheels, I paper-pieced 72 of these triangle to begin with. I had to sew a few more to make the mini-quilt the size I wanted, but it went pretty quickly.

It was a little tricky to keep all the pieces straight to make the tessellations work out, and several times I thought I had sewn pieces together incorrectly but hadn't. (OK, there were a couple of times I had to use a seam ripper, but not as many times as I thought I'd have to.) Having a design wall would have helped, but since this is a mini-quilt, I managed. After that, I sewed the pieces in columns, sewed the columns together, trimmed the edges, quilted by stitching in the ditch, then put the binding on.

The creator of the pattern also had four fabrics, but used only three for the main body of pinwheels. Her fourth, a light print, she used around the edges to good effect. I chose to do an overall design with my four. You'd have to use at least three fabrics for the design to really work, but you could make it a scrappy quilt and use many more than four. But I'll bet that would prove to be a real headache though, as the number of possible combinations would rise exponentially, and you'd want to make sure the fabrics all work together well.

I would love to make a big quilt in this design, but I think I'll stick to four fabrics.

#34 Cathedral Window

#34: Cathedral Window
Finished: 8/26/12
Techniques: Cathedral Window, origami
Size: 9" x 9"

I've wanted to try a Cathedral Window quilt for some time, but shied away thinking it was too difficult. On a recent trip to Nebraska, however, I was reacquainted with a Cathedral Window quilt that a friend's mother had made. Leone Gustafson's quilt is quite lovely, and it inspired me to give it a try.  I found instructions on the web that required folding of fabric, rather like origami. At a certain point, colorful printed fabric is folded separately and inserted to create a stained glass cathedral window effect. Because of the folding of the fabric, no batting is needed to complete the quilt.

Four petal quilting on reverse

I had a little difficulty with the hand stitching; I don't do
very well with keeping my stitching invisible, and I didn't
like the effect. So I switched to machine stitching and was
much happier. I still had a little trouble with puckering near
the center of the piece but it's not terribly noticeable. And the machine stitching creates a nice four petal quilting design on
the reverse of the piece. It's not easy to see, but you can just
make it out.





I like the way this mini-quilt goes together. It's a "quilt-as-you-go" design. I could have added on as many rows and columns as I wished, working out from the center. I chose to stay with just the four windows, making this the smallest mini-quilt to date.

#33 Milky Way

#33: Milky Way
Finished: 8/19/12
Techniques: Paper piecing, Appliqué
Size: 16" x 12"

Description: Years ago, I made a quilt for my niece utilizing a dozen or more of paper-pieced stars similar to these. I had also used a polka dot batik to simulate the galaxy. I still had some of that fabric left over and decided to re-create that quilt on a smaller scale. Using Carol Doak's designs from her book, 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks, I paper-pieced 5 different stars in different colors and used the polka dot batik for part of the background.

But I didn't use enough of the polka dot in the construction of the red/pink star. When I sewed the pieces together the red/pink star stood out too much. It looked disjointed. At that point, I could have taken out the odd star, made a new one and inserted it, but that seemed like too much work. So what I did instead was to apply Steam-A-Seam to the back of the fabric, cut out some dots and appliqué them to strategic places to minimize the contrast. It actually adds a bit of interest to the mini-quilt.

#32 Double Helix

#32: Double Helix
Finished: 8/10/12
Techniques: Convergence
Size: 12 1/2" x 19"

"Sine Me Up" by Kent Williams,
reprinted with permission from the artist.

Description: I was reading 500 Art Quilts edited by Ray Hemachandra and Karey Bresenhan and fell in love with a  quilt by Kent Williams entitled "Sine Me Up". As this was more of an art book and not a quilting technique book, there were no instructions for how to create this quilt - just a photo and a small close up. So working from the photo, I had to figure out how it was done.  I could see it involved alternating rows of fabric strips, but at first I thought I would have to work with curves. I tried that but failed miserably. I could see that there were curves going to the left and curves going to the right, but it drove me crazy for a while trying to figure out how to put it together.

Then I realized I was making it too complicated and knew I had to look for a simpler solution. It turns out that this is a very easy construction technique. Very easy, yet quite ingenious! I created rows of alternating strips: 1) light purple, red, pink, olive, and light blue and 2) dark blue, yellow, green, orange, and dark purple. I then alternated the rows, moving one row 1/4" to the right while moving the other row 1/4" to the left when adding each subsequent row. That gives the appearance of curves in two directions.

Now if I had been smart, I would have done some strip piecing of the five row fabrics and then cut them out, but no, I cut out individual rectangles and then pieced them together. Strip piecing may also have helped in making cleaner, straighter rows. Ah well - I'll know better for next time.

My mini-quilt is not as elegant as Mr. Williams'. I didn't achieve the nice curved effect, but I attribute that to facts that my rectangles are not as long as his, nor do I have as many shifts to the right and left. It may also be because he shifted the rows less than 1/4" but I am not positive of that as it is difficult to determine the scale. So my mini-quilt came out more angular than curved, but the overall effect reminded me of the double helix of DNA, hence the title.

Another interesting note: There is an optical illusion that occurs here, and it is most evident with the orange (although you can see it somewhat with the other colors as well, to varying degrees). Look on the right side of the mini-quilt. Does it appear that there is a dark orange diagonal to a lighter orange? It's all the same orange fabric! The illusion occurs because the orange looks lighter when it is next to the light blue, and darker when it is next to the olive color.

Thank you, Kent Williams, for allowing me post a photo of your quilt! I encourage others to check out his website gallery of quilts. They are phenomenal! http://www.rkentwilliams.com/galleries.html

#31 Olympic Rings

#31: Olympic Rings
Finished: 8/5/12
Techniques: Appliqué, Paper-piecing, Double Wedding Ring inspired
Size: 30 1/2" x 18"

Description:   My quilting group suggested the Olympics as a design for a mini-quilt and I loved the idea! A design based on the rings seemed the reasonable choice, but how to liven it up? I thought I would combine the Olympic rings with elements of a double wedding ring design. Double wedding rings are comprised of multiple fabrics, so that's how I created these rings. I created the circles on paper using different sized dinner plates and paper-pieced them together. I sewed a solid backing to each ring in the appropriate color for it, clipped the curves, and turned them right-side out, then appliquéd them to the white background.

The colors of the rings and the interweaving of them are consistent with the actual Olympic flag. The colors blue, black, red, yellow, green, as well as white, represent at least one color on every country's flag.

#30 Pole Bending

#30: Pole Bending
Finished: 7/29/12
Techniques: Needle-turn appliqué, decorative machine stitches
Size: 34 1/2" x 11"

Description: This week I learned about Pole Bending. My cousin* Robbin was competing in the National Little Britches Rodeo this past week in Pueblo, and I got to meet up with her and her family on Wednesday. Robbin's event is Pole Bending, which I knew very little about.  Six poles, evenly spaced, are set up in the arena. From the starting gate you run your horse to the end and then weave in and out of the poles down and then back again, and then finish by racing back to the starting gate as fast as you can. All without touching or knocking over the poles.

I had this horse fabric in my stash and added a black border on top and bottom. In Pole Bending, only one horse rides at a time, of course, but that would have been boring for a mini-quilt. I like how the geometric diamond design of the print lends to the idea that this is happening in an arena. For the poles I used a decorative machine stitch on solid green fabric which coordinated with the print, then cut out the pole shapes and hand appliquéd them on using the needle-turn appliqué technique. This was the first time I'd ever use needle-turn appliqué and I think I did it badly. I wanted the poles to be straight, but as you can see, they are very crooked. I had basted them on to the background, and I had applied interfacing, but apparently it wasn't enough to hold them perfectly in place. So my poles bend, which wasn't what I intended, but perhaps is appropriate for a mini-quilt called "Pole Bending".

I didn't have enough of the horse fabric for the backing of the mini-quilt, but I did have some cowgirl boot fabric. Here's a sample.

This was a simple quilt to put together; the most time-consuming part was the hand appliqué.


* Just a side note here about cousins, if anyone is interested. Robbin is actually my first cousin, once removed. Her mother Kathy is my first cousin because Kathy's dad and my mom are brother and sister. If I had any children, they and Robbin would be second cousins. I know this because I have many, many cousins on that side of the family. But we all just refer to each other as "cousin," wouldn't you?

Congratulations, Robbin, on making the nationals! I dedicate this mini-quilt to you.

#29 Tumbling Blocks

#29: Tumbling Blocks
Finished: 7/22/12
Techniques: Y-seams, Metallic thread, Invisible thread, Stitch in the ditch
Size: 26" x 25 1/2"

Description: I like the tumbling block design because of its three dimensional illusion, but I've never tried to create them before now. Traditionally they are pieced using what's known as a Y-seam. Where the three colors meet, you see a "Y". I found the Y-seams to be a little tricky but not too bad. Some of them came out really well - perfectly pointed! - but others were off a bit.  There is a way to create the design using straight seams, but this creates a line through some of the diamond shapes which I find distracting. However, if I had used a busier pattern for the fabrics, it may have gone unnoticed.

The outer border was actually my inspiration for this mini-quilt. It was fabric I picked up, I believe, at an ARC thrift store some time ago. I used fabric from my stash to correspond to the blue, yellow, and reddish orange in the border print to create the large tumbling blocks. The solid blue inner border was added because I felt the eye needed a resting place before adding the outer border. When sewing on the outer border, I oriented the fabric to correspond to the larger tumbling blocks. This meant that I had to cut some of the fabric cross-wise and some lengthwise, but I'm glad I did it that way.

I haven't used metallic thread much in the past, because I found it difficult to work with. But here was a perfect opportunity to try it again. In the border fabric, the little tumbling blocks are surrounded by metallic gold lines. When I tried simulating those gold lines with metallic thread, I was using old metallic thread that jammed up right away. Then I switched to an unused spool of gold metallic thread that I had bought years ago but never used. It worked very well, so the lesson I learned is to use good new metallic thread in the future.

It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but some of my stitching in the ditch was not evenly applied.

Using a multi-colored print fabric as your focus fabric and then choosing other fabrics that match and blend with it is a good way of designing and choosing fabrics for a quilt. I've used this technique in the past for full-sized quilts.

I put the picture in extra large, because this is the largest mini-quilt I've done to date.

#28 Celtic Knot

#28: Celtic Knot
Finished: 7/15/12
Techniques: Celtic Knot design, Bias Tape, Echo Quilting.
Size: 13 x13"

I was intrigued by the celtic knots I was reading about in the "Great Book of Celtic Patterns" by Lora Irish. The intricate weaving of lines in and out of other lines forming continuous loops holds great appeal for me, and I wondered if I could convert something like that into a quilt design.

I started out by finding a pattern that wasn't too easy, but wasn't too difficult either. It is a design I got from the book, but I modified it slightly when sketching it out to allow more space to work with. Once it was sketched, I stitched the design out onto the fabric as a guide. I could have made bias tape for the design, but just decided to use store bought bias tape that I had around. I have other colors but only had a sufficient amount of black and white for this particular design. I could have used a more colorful background, but doing so only seemed to detract from the celtic knot design, so I went with a mottled gray fabric. I ironed the bias tape in half so it was more like a cording. It really stands out! I used a simple zigzag stitch to attach it to the background.

Transferring the pattern to the fabric proved a little difficult. As a result, the design is not perfectly symmetrical. In the future, I think I will sketch out the entire design on paper, overlay it on the fabric and stitch through the paper for guidelines. Stitching the bias tape onto the fabric presented some problems as well. Pinning didn't work well because pulling out the pins as I was stitching caused the tape to shift. Working without pins meant that I had to keep lifting the tape to make sure I was centered on the guidelines. Using a glue stick was messy and didn't hold well. I could have tried cutting strips of Steam-A-Seam and attaching the bias tape before stitching, but that seemed like too much work. And no matter which method I used, I still had to deal with making sure that the bias tape went over or under the correct way, which is more difficult than you might think.

You might think with all this complaining that I didn't enjoy making this mini-quilt. But actually I did enjoy it. I had to use my problem-solving skills a lot, and it was a challenge, but I generally like the way it turned out.

#27 Pinwheel Fireworks

#27: Pinwheel Fireworks
Finished: 7/8/12
Techniques: Paper-piecing, Mitered borders, Invisible thread, Pinwheel design
Size: 16 1/2 x 16 1/2"

I'm pleased to say I'm back on track with the mini-quilts! This one was finished on time in its entirety.

I wanted to do something in red, white, and blue to commemorate the fourth of July celebration. This is a design modified slightly from Carol Doak's "365 Foundation Quilt Blocks," which I own. In the book, the design for July 4th was too simple. This is actually the design for July 26; a little more intricate, but one that I could enlarge and sketch out easily onto foundation paper. I liked it because the pinwheel design reminded me of fireworks.

Fireworks have been banned in the city for a number of years now, but in years previously, one would always hear the occasional one go off. I am proud and impressed that I heard NO fireworks go off this year! The recent wildfire must have made a big impression on people who would normally ignore the rules.

I had a variety of star fabrics in blue and red and the red striped fabric all seemed appropriate for the design. The white is a tone-on tone leaf design because I didn't have any white with stars. With the stripe, I felt that a mitered border would be better than overlapping borders. I am really pleased with the way the miter came out. I find that mitered borders are pretty easy to do. The paper-piecing was easy too, although I had some trouble when adding the border. The point at the top of the pinwheel is sharp, but, even though I was trying to be careful, the other points were blunted when I added the border. I think it might have happened when I was squaring up the paper-pieced portion before adding the border. I may not have left the proper amount of seam allowance. A quarter inch can be very small at time.

Quilting was done with invisible thread, which I've never enjoyed working with. It seems to me that when one used invisible thread, it always appears that the fabric has holes in it. However, with the thinness of the quilt batting, I was able to use a small enough needle so that the hole effect was minimized.

The red stripe fabric gives the optical illusion of movement if you stare at it too long. How appropriate for this spinning pinwheel fireworks display. I hope you enjoy this.

#26 Ribbon Weaving

#26: Ribbon Weaving
Almost finished: 7/1/12
Techniques: Weaving
Size: 16 x 15"

Description: OK, this is another late posting, and another quilt that wasn't quite done on time. But the only thing left was the binding and sleeve, so I don't feel too bad.

I've wanted to try a weaving technique, but didn't know how to best go about that with fabric. Should I use raw edged fabric, or make tubes of fabric so there would be no raw edges? But then I looked at my collection of ribbons that I've had forever, and decided to try it with those. I have a collection of ribbons in many widths - some are very wide as you can see. Some are satin ribbons, some are antique ribbons that my grandmother gave me, some are grosgrain ribbons, acetate, etc. I chose colors that I thought worked together and then just wove them in and out to create the design. Quilting was minimal by using a fancy machine stitch on a couple of the wider ribbons.

I worried that the ribbons wouldn't hold up to the stitching, fearing that they would snag or pucker, but that was not the case; the ribbons did very well when I used a ball point needle. I will say that the slipperiness of the ribbons was difficult to work with and the rows and columns are not even as a result, especially with the narrower ribbons. I would have to figure out a way to better anchor ribbons if I do another project like this one. Originally I was going to trying a different quilting method, possibly free motion or quilting some design, but when I was how slippery the ribbons were, I knew that wouldn't work.

Binding was done with ribbon too, but I didn't get a picture of that. I'll remedy that soon, as I get back on track.

On another note... this is #26 for the year! I'm half way through my year of mini-quilts! Where does the time go? I originally had thought I would run out of ideas for mini-quilts, and sometimes I did run low on inspiration, but always managed to rally! I still have a lot of fun doing this, so stay tuned!

#25 Vertical Aquarium

#25: Vertical Aquarium
Almost Finished: 6/24/12
Techniques: Raw-edge appliqué, Wobble stitch
Size: 14 1/2" x 28"

Description: I apologize for the lateness of this posting. I didn't quite get this mini-quilt done by last Sunday's deadline, but all that was left to do was to add the binding and sleeve. So the important part was done on time. This will be the first time during this project that I haven't made the deadline. I'm disappointed in that, but considering what's been going on, I'm not beating myself up about not finishing a mini-quilt.

It's been quite the week here in Colorado Springs. A major fire started last Saturday and erupted on Tuesday destroying over 300 homes, and evacuating 32,000+ people. Two people have lost their lives. My home was not in the danger zone, but my friend Mary Beth was evacuated from hers. She stayed with me until she was allowed to go back. I'm happy to report that there was no damage to her place. She and I both know at least one person whose home was destroyed and our hearts go out to her and her family, and to all those who have lost so much. This mini-quilt is dedicated to them.

The mini-quilt was made from a batik scarf that I had bought at a garage sale and wasn't using. It was large enough to use as the background for the design as well as the backing material. The scarf was very thin and a little difficult to work with because it kept shifting. The quilting was done prior to the appliqué process using a wobble stitch - a very narrow zigzag stitch - and although the front came out OK, the backing did have some puckering in places.

Of course the design on the batik is flower-like, but it also reminded me of bubbles in a fish tank. My friends Sean and Karen have a vertical aquarium - taller than it is wide - and that's where I got the idea to create this vertically. As I've mentioned before, I have a lot of fish fabric. I applied Steam-a-Seam to the reverse side of several fish motifs and cut them out and appliquéd to the batik. The greenish blue sea weed pieces at the bottom were what's left after cutting out the fish. I simply trimmed them up and appliquéd them as well.

I hope to have my next posting soon, but will admit to being a little behind again this week. We'll see how it goes.

#24 Venus Voila!

#24: Venus Voila!
Finished: 6/16/12
Techniques: Around the World design, appliqué, Grass stitch
Size: 20" x 20"

Description: Well, this mini-quilt went on quite a journey! Just like Venus, I suppose. It was mid-week and I hadn't had an inspiration for a new mini-quilt, so I was going to fall back on doing a color collage in orange (similar to the color collage in green - see #15 "Spring Has Sprung" from April). I started by pulling all my oranges from my stash and wanted to experiment with creating an illusion of a spherical shape. I started with a light orange center and, using the "Around the World" design, put in progressively darker oranges for each round. Unlike the "Around the World" design however, I made the widths of the pieces incrementally smaller with each round. I was hoping to create a spherical illusion, but it didn't work. However, it struck me that the piece I  had cut into a circle did somewhat look like the sun, and I was still remembering watching the recent transit of Venus on June 5th. Then the inspiration hit me to appliqué the piece onto some outer space fabric I had, and add a black button to represent Venus! Voila!

Watching the transit was fascinating!  I especially liked seeing it through the telescope with the hydrogen filter which made the sun look red and you could see the "solar hairs"  - that's what the astronomy students were calling the active solar surface. The grass stitch I used to appliqué the piece onto the background is an uneven satin stitch which I really like, and it simulated the solar hairs.

The picture above is a closer shot of the mini-quilt that better shows the details of the grass stitch and quilting, as well as the variety of orange fabrics. The picture underneath shows the mini-quilt in its entirety, but once again the camera had difficulty with the brightness of the oranges. Another serendipitous discovery is that the picture above is actually a more interesting composition that the full sun picture below.  Hmmm. Something to think about for future artwork.

#23 Origami

#23: Origami
Finished: 6/10/12
Techniques: Folded fabric, machine stitches, pieced binding
Size: 13 x 14"

Description: I was inspired to create this mini-quilt by my friend Sarah Withee and her origami projects. I had seen folded fabric and origami quilting books before and so now was the time to try it. I used Fantastic Fabric Folding by Rebecca Wat for instructions, but I found it rather difficult to do the origami itself. It took time to figure out the instructions, reading it several times and trying to gain insight from the photographs. Once I did though, it went much easier and faster.

I used batiks and mottled fabrics that read as solids for the origami portions, as well as the pieced binding. I used various machine stitches to add a bit more color to the black background. A few buttons were added for flair.

Here are some close-ups of the individual origami features, except for the orange one. For some reason, neither my phone nor camera did well in capturing the orange. It was too bright or something. I tried different settings to no avail. Oh well.

#22 Atrium

Mini-quilt

Atrium Skylight

#22: Atrium
Finished: 5/31/12
Techniques: Satin stitching, appliqué
Size: 15 1/2" x 15 1/2"

Description: I've often looked at the skylight in Tutt Library's atrium and thought it would make a nice quilt block. Now that I'm quilting, I tend to see patterns everywhere. But I never got around to actually making a quilt block with this design until now - and I had a very special reason for doing it. Our library director, Carol Dickerson, is retiring this year and I made this as a gift for her. I had library staff members sign the back as a remembrance. Carol has been a wonderful boss, and I've learned a great deal from her. Here's looking forward to a continuing friendship as she embarks on the new adventure of retirement!

The mini-quilt is basically a 25 patch piece, with some squares, some half triangle squares, and a central quarter triangle square. I used muted colors and prints to best simulate the opaqueness of the window panes. The white open square for the light was pieced and overlaid as an appliqué. Satin stitching was used to simulate to structural portions of the skylight.

A simple quilt to put together, but one with great sentimental value for me. I hope Carol will look upon it with fondness.