Is September nearing an end already? Today is the last week of Mini Quilt Monday. I hope you have enjoyed spending the month challenging yourself to try new things. This week I decided to try my hand at Dresden Plates. I’ve wanted to try these since I first saw the cover of the book Material Obsession. That quilt is *so* beautiful.

I followed Elizabeth Hartman’s tutorial from Sew Mama Sew. She makes everything so easy to understand. These were a lot easier to make than I thought they would be. (I did purchase a special ruler at JoAnns for about $5.) The center circle could use some practice, but overall I’m happy with how this mini turned out and definitely wouldn’t shy away from making more of these. I used my collection of Joel Dewberry’s Heirloom fabric, such pretty colors and designs.

I quilted straight lines 1/4″ on each side of the dresden seams and continuing to the edge of the quilt. It produced a pretty star in the center. The binding is actually closer to red, Kona Cayenne, but I thought it looked quite nice with the Heirloom palette. The final size is 16″ square.

So there you have it – now let’s see what you made this week!

Welcome to our third Mini Quilt Monday! This week I decided to dive right into the book Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci. I recently discovered Tonya’s blog, and wow, there is a lot of inspiration on there!

I have future plans to make a quilt with some words on it, but I was a bit intimidated when it came to making letters. I’m *pretty* sure I’ve mentioned that geometry and I don’t exactly get along. And this style of letters looked like you needed to know something about that. Tonya’s book makes it SO easy! She has step-by-step instructions for all letters and numbers.

I also followed tips that I learned during Malka Dubrawsky’s Improvisational Piecing class:
1. I followed basic color rules when making my letters. Each letter/number is made with either warm or cool fabrics. I alternated warm/cool/warm/cool/etc.

2. I didn’t use my ruler once when making this mini quilt. I freehand cut all pieces with my rotary cutter. If a piece had a slight curve to it, I incorporated that curve into the next piece I sewed on.

3. When sewing letters together, if one letter was smaller than the next, I added fabric to the smaller piece rather than trimming fabric from the larger piece.

4. I used mostly solid fabrics, but incorporated a few prints to add a bit of interest.

I know this improvisational style of sewing makes some of you break out into a cold sweat. I won’t name names. You know who you are. LOL But I just love how it turned out!

I quilted this mini using straight lines in varying directions on the background portions of the letters. As for the fabric, I used a selection of solids from my stash: Kona cottons, Kaffe Fassett shot cottons, Moda crossweaves, Free Spirit Designer Solids and Pat Bravo’s Pure Elements solids. Phew! The binding is a Kei Honeycomb. The final size is 14″ x 12.5″. This is one mini quilt I think would look great hanging up in a nursery with little clothes pins. I’ve added it to my shop.

So let’s see what you made this week. Link ‘em up!

Welcome to week 2 of Mini Quilt Monday! If last week’s quilt was pushing the upper limits of what can be called a “Mini Quilt”, then this week’s quilt is taking on those lower limits. Coming in at just 3.5″ by 4.5″, this mini quilt was designed to be my name tag for The Sewing Summit next month in Salt Lake City.

I started by mocking up my design in Photoshop.

I used a block design from my new blog banner. After printing the design onto paper, I taped it to the window and traced it onto white fabric and did some simply hand embroidery. To create the mini quilt block (about a 1″ square), I ironed fusible web to the back of fabric scraps, cut out the tiny pieces, and ironed them into place around the embroidery. I created a quilt sandwich and used clear thread to “quilt” those tiny pieces into place permanently. I then quilted a small border around the entire name tag. The binding is also tiny, cut at 1-1/4″ before folding.

So there you have it! My smallest quilt ever. Let’s see what you’ve made this week!

Today is our first Mini Quilt Monday and I am excited to share my first wonky star quilt. I’m not sure what took me so long to make these, they really came together quickly! I followed this tutorial on The Silly BooDilly. On this quilt, each section/square of the star is 3″ unfinished. I laid out my stars the same way as a plus quilt, starting in the middle and working my way out to the edges.

I don’t have much of Denyse Schmidt’s Flea Market Fancy, but I decided to go ahead and cut into some of my small stash. I’m really happy I did. Fabric is made to be used and enjoyed. I love the bright colors of this line, and am excited that Free Spirit will be rereleasing some of the prints this winter.

Initially I planned to use the solid color fabric for a scrappy binding. But once I had it laid out around the quilt, I thought it would really add a nice frame to the the quilt as an additional border.

I also tried something new with the quilting of this mini. I quilted around each star using my walking foot. I like the finished effect…but it was a lot of quilt turning. I definitely wouldn’t do it on something larger than this. It seemed like it took forever and honestly I didn’t really enjoy it.

This quilt measures 36″ x 36″ and is listed in the shop.

Besides the quilt, did you notice I updated my blog header? Also trying something new there. If you are reading this through Google Reader, come on over and check it out.

So let’s see what you’ve created this week! Link ‘em up and grab a badge! Don’t forget, it can be a work in progress. Just something new you are trying to challenge yourself!