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.

 

I made the larger block (14.5″ x 14.5″) as a project for the Mini Meez quilt club. The pattern came from a Miniature Quilt magazine that I borrowed from our leader. When it was finished it seemed rather large for a “miniature”, even though I reduced the size of the border.

Since the pattern was made of quite simple blocks I was able to do the math and make a mini of the miniature with a finished size of 7.5 inches square.

I’m not sure what will become of these. Pat has said they make a nice table topper/hot pad combination and I might go with that!

 

Monday, May 11, 2015

The pattern was an on-line quilt-along and, since it was promised to finish by Mother’s Day, I chose it as the card for my daughters.

The pattern was meant to be a table topper, but I changed the border to make it more suitable as a wall hanging (21″ x 21″). All of the petals came from scraps. The added buttons were my own touch (mainly to cover up some less-than-great appliqued circles).

This blue one went to Christy. I did some free-motion veins in the petals but felt they looked more like leaves when they were finished. The background was a stitch-in-the-ditch grid line along the seams.

The orange one was for Elizabeth. I echoed the shape of the petal with a light gray thread and the results were much better.

I always think of purple for Kathryn. Again I echoed the petals but this time used a variegated gold thread.

A close-up view of the echo quilting.