How Small Can It Get?

I've been toying around with ideas for the guild's boutique (thanks Pinterest for the ideas) and yesterday this is what I played with.


I had some small leftover squares from another project and thought I'd give it a go.  It's a disappearing four patch, but due to the small size, it looks more like a 16 patch.  I am also without my regular Bernina (getting prepped for new flooring) so the trusty Singer 15-91 got to play with me.

Fancy Folded Star

Last week quilting with the ladies, we had a workshop.  I learned how to fold the star and stitch it down.  I took it a bit further, added another star and some sparkles.  It finished out about 18 in. square.  Think it will go on the studio wall.

Tiny boxes

It's time to start creating items for my guild's boutique, so I've been toying around with tiny things.  One could be a tiny treasure box, the other I think will be a tooth fairy box. Neither takes a lot of materials, in fact I went straight to my scrap pile and started with this.

Next I cut two triangles from the fabric, one from batting, glued them together with glue stick.

Then satin stitched around the edge.  Remember  these are "prototypes" so my satin stitching isn't quite up to par.  Fold up and match sides two at a time and stitch part way.  After that is done, fold down the tops, add bling or whatever and you are done.  Under 30 minutes start to finish.

Here they are.  Isn't the baby one cute?

Retreat Time

I always love when retreat time comes along.  Uninterrupted time to sew and be with some of the best quilty friends around.  This time it was great...except for the migraine that hit the first morning and continued on and off the rest of the time.  I was so excited to work on Ricky Timms Convergence, bought just the right fabrics that were out of my comfort zone, pressed, starched, got the first cut down, and whammo IT hit.  What came next was not pretty...my muddled brain skipped a step and I sliced the wrong thing.  Ugh with a capital UGH.  Well, that lemon will have to wait until I am ready to face it again.  What did come out was this - on the second try (when the meds finally kicked in).

I did learn a few things though, never attempt a new technique with a migraine and a convergence will look much better with three different fabrics.

Disappearing hourglass

I tried a new technique with this one.  I'd seen the disappearing hourglass all over Pinterest and thought I would give it a try.  It went together quickly, the hardest part was deciding which way to turn the blocks.  I used some donated fabric from the free table at the quilt guild meeting and sent it on its way to Comfort Quilts, hopefully there's a little girl out there that likes the 70's prints.

Fold and Sew quilt

I've been working on a new (to me) technique with very little cutting.  It's called fold and sew (check out Fold and Sew National Quilters Circle on youtube) and was created to use layer cakes and charm squares.  Essentially what you are supposed to do is lay a charm in the middle of a layer.  Fold the layer over the charm on one side, sew a quarter inch seam, do the same for the opposite.  Next you do the remaining two sides.  But, I can never leave anything the same, so I changed it up.  I used 2 colors of yardage, cut in 10-in. squares and some smaller rectangles/squares from each color.  From the pictures you can see that I flipped between large orange squares and large blue squares.


 For the solid orange inner areas I did a pebble quilt fill, my first on my DSM (sadly the long arm is still packed), the other areas are just channel quilted. Hopefully some baby will wear it out so I can make him/her another one!

Newest Baby Quilt

Finally a great-nephew is born into the family.  Alright, he was born over a year ago but with the move I kind of got behind.   It was fun to put together out of charm squares from a pattern in Perfect Quilts for Precut Fabrics.  I used Robert Kaufman's Urban Zoologie because I just had to giggle at the animals. The quilt was not a wide as I wanted it so I added an extra border, you know kids don't just stay in one spot--they like to spread out.