These pears are just peachy

The next mini quilt that I wanted to make was  Mini Canned Pears  by Fig Tree Quilts.  I liked the color palette of the quilt on the pattern, and decided I would try to use some Fig Tree fabrics to make it.  Lucky for me, my local quilt shop was having a "Friday the 13th" sale.  The deal was 13 fat quarters for $13.00.    I knew this was a good chance to pick up some Fig Tree fats, so I headed out in a downpour of rain, determined to score my 13 fabrics.

I scoured the fat quarter bins, and came up with 6 fat quarters of Fig Tree-ish colors, and padded out the rest of  my 13 with some fun kid friendly prints for a future Quilt for Kids.

Then, I went to the bolts of yardage and bought some 1/4 yards of  fabrics to round out my purchase:

This is an unusual color palette for this jewel tone gal, but I thought I would give it a go.  Picking pairs of greens for the leaves was not the challenge I thought it might be, and allowed me to use up some small scraps of green from the scrap bin.

Next came cutting all the little pieces of white background fabric that would turn squares of fabric into leaves and fruit.  There were so many small pieces of similar sizes, that I had to make myself a spreadsheet to keep track of them:

By the time I went to bed last night, I had everything cut out, diagonal lines marked, a new needle in my machine, and a full bobbin ready to go.  Today, I spent my time sewing, and I have my 9 pears ready to be put together into a quilt top.

Don't they look good enough to eat?

Puddle Jumping on a Sunny Day

Finished sewing my mini Puddle Jumping quilt top:

I had been saving this grouping of fat quarters for a while now, waiting for a fun pattern.

When Puddle Jumping came along, it was time to cut into them.  It seemed like a zillion tiny pieces.

Probably a good thing that I didn't know until afterward that this tiny quilt has over 300 pieces.  

Anyhow, it totally justifies buying a fat quarter even if you only use this much of it, right?

Modern Mini Mania

You may have noticed a bit of a trend toward mini quilts among the designers in the quilt world, and I couldn't be happier.  So far, I've made two of Camille Roskelley's mini patterns,   Mini Spools, and Mini Swoon.  Now I am working on Mini Puddle Jumping.

Compared to the Spools and Swoon quilts, which had 6" and 8" blocks,  this mini pattern truly is MINI. The finished blocks measure only 3".   When sewing together two 1" square blocks, there's hardly any room to hold on!  LOL!

 So, it's a bit more of a challenge, but I really enjoy making them.

Square-in-a-square blocks can be hard to make accurately, but the pattern calls for making them just slightly oversized, and then trimming them down.

Once again, I turned to my Tucker Trimmer ruler to do the trimming.  The lines on the ruler created a nice crosshair that I could use to center on the middle square, and get a nice even trim all around.

I only have one row sewn together so far, but with only 9 blocks in the whole mini quilt it won't take too long to get the rest put together.   Someday, I'd like to have a wall of mini's like this one, which belongs to none other than Camille Roskelley herself.

6 months of Blogger Girls

This month, the last 2 blocks of Monique Dillard's Blogger Girls Block of the Month were posted.  Here are my blocks for this month:

The block on the right had a mind of it's own, and it came out looking like this at first:

The setting for this quilt requires 13 blocks, so an additional block from one of the previous months had to be made.  I chose the Dutchman's Puzzle block from February and made it in the traditional coloring for my 13th block:

I am hoping to get the quilt top all put together by July 1st, in time for the finishing instructions.  I'm kind of going to miss making 2 of these fun little squares each month.

More Swooning

Lots of swooning around here the past few days:

No, not THAT kind.  THIS kind:

I finished putting together the Mini Swoon quilt, that I showed in my last post.  I kind of love it.

Don't let the word "mini" fool you...for a small quilt, (finished size is 19" square) it took a good bit of time to sew.  I think it's partly due to the fact that I pressed many of the seams open to reduce bulk, and that took me a bit of time.  (I like my fingers burn-free, thank you.)

I made the first block from start to finish, but then made the next 3 blocks in tandem. Staying organized was the key.

Hmmm. That doesn't look very organized.

There was a good amount of "sew and flip" that had to happen:

and lots of triangles to be trimmed.

And lets not forget this trimming too...

There are 32 half square triangles in all that need to be trimmed to 1 1/2" squares.

Anyhow, I'm not complaining.  It really was a fun mini to make, and I can't wait to get it quilted and hung.  I'm hoping to  be teaching this as a class at my local quilt shop in the Fall.  One thing I would recommend is using a fine thread, like Aurifil, and a  sharp Microtex needle size 70.  Those two things really helped me keep the block units more accurate.

Happy Swooning!

And then, she swooned....

So.
This happened:

This is my first Mini Swoon block.  It measures 8 inches finished:

It was fun to see it all come together, but just because it is small did not mean it had any less pieces than the standard Swoon. Yer lookin' at 65 pieces there.

Only 3 more blocks to go, and I'll be able to complete this little mini quilt, designed by Camille Roskelley of Thimbleblossoms quilts.

I have cut  all the white background  for the next 3 blocks, and I know which fabrics I'll be using for the rest.

If you need me, I'll be swooning at my sewing machine.