After the 2015 Guild Quilt Show we were approached by Family Place to see if we could make a large quilt for the kids to sit on during their story time. One of our Guild members took on the task of coordinating the project; but we were asked to each make a 36″ x 36″ square (quilted and bound). These quilts (or mats) could then be individually chosen by the kids who are in attendance and they would each have their own story-time spot.

I signed up for the task immediately because Family Place is the venue our BOND mums and babies graduate to. I wanted to use some of my novelty fabrics for the quilt I was making, but I didn’t think 36″ was large enough for a good I-Spy quilt. I came up with my own pattern for this.

I re-used half of a set of curtains I made for Dylan’s room as the backing. I think the fabric makes the mat reversible, depending on the mood of the child.

This pattern was introduced at the first Mini Meez meeting; two of the group were making it but I decided to pass and worked on something else. By the second meeting another person had made one and it was introduced as “putting her own spin on the pattern”. I decided it would be a good way to use up some of my pre-cut squares so moved forward with it. I pieced the top at the Mount Washington retreat.

I used one of the templates from the book 501 Quilting Motifs for the larger squares, and stitch-in-the-ditch and cross-hatching for the rest.

I like my miniatures to teach me something, so I used a two colour binding on the project. It was simple to do and I’ll use it again. I often don’t match my quilt top to the backing and then deciding on a binding is an issue. Not with this technique.

I’ll probably offer the quilt for sale at the 2015 craft sale; if it doesn’t sell I’ll likely add it to my doll carriage.

I picked this pattern from one of the magazines available through the Mini Meez group. I love Dresden plates and thought I could English Paper Piece it. As a challenge to myself I had been hand piecing some of my miniature projects; this project would allow me to hand piece and hand quilt.

Things didn’t work out as planned and, when I was done, I was temped to throw the whole thing out the window. But I knew the other Mini Meez were very interested in the pattern as I was stitching , so I started over, this time using my machine.

I made all my fans the same colour. The fans are appliquéd using a blanket stitch; I used a flip and quilt method, with the appliqué stitches serving as the main quilting. A stitch-in-the-ditch cross hatch finished the quilting.

On the way to Little Fans, Let Me Count the Ways was born.

Let me count the ways I messed up:

• I didn’t allow the ¼” seam allowance in my English paper piecing templates so everything was much smaller than it should have been
• I didn’t cut the setting triangles properly and I didn’t recognize the difference between setting triangles and corners
• The hand quilting worked okay (using fine crochet cotton) but I didn’t square the piece first so many of my knots were in the area that would be squared off and the stitches could come out very easily
• The actual squaring up process was dismal as I tried to keep points and half triangles on the edges
• Because the piece wasn’t squared properly the binding isn’t square either
• When it was all done I pressed it and there was something on my iron that transferred to the piece
• When I washed out the spot the iron left, the colours in one of the fans ran even though I had used a colour absorbing sheet

I bought the placemat pattern from one of the out-of-town vendors at our 2015 Quilt Show – in fact it was the only thing I purchased. I picked out fabric from my stash for the background; I also had fat quarters in my stash that went well with each of the background fabrics. After reading the pattern more closely, I was afraid a fat quarter wouldn’t be enough for the blades so I purchased some lovely new colours from Crazy Quilt Cottage just after she opened for business.

I pieced the tops at the Mount Washington retreat in May, and they were surprisingly easy to make. I stitched the outer edges of the blades with decorative stitches on my machine. The appliqué was done before the pieces were sandwiched. The placemats use an envelope finish so that the binding doesn’t break the design in the middle. The quilting was done by stitching between the fan blades and extending the line out to the edge.

When the placemats aren’t in use, they come together to make a nice centrepiece.