This is the first mini quilt that I’ve decided to make – it’s the design in the top right hand corner of the pattern pack shown below – the one with the red floral border.
It’s a design by Lori Smith, of From My Heart to Your Hands, in the USA. She sells loads of pattern packs for all kinds of quilts. This pack, for nine quilts, cost $12, plus $4 shipping to the UK. Many of her designs are small (this pattern pack features designs that are all 16 x 20 inches each when finished). That’s exactly the kind of sized quilt that I want to make. Much bigger than that, and I’m going to run out of house space really fast!
I want to change the colours slightly – partly because it’s just impossible to get the same fabrics that any designers feature in their photos, but also because I fancy using a more subdued palette. I bought two fat quarter packs of reproduction design fabrics from the Fat Quarter Shop in the USA to begin with. These are in beautiful shades of maroon, red, stone, plum, olive and the odd highlight of orange.
I washed all the fabrics before I started to use them, in case they might shrink later, or the colours might run.
Lori’s patttern packs assume you have a basic knowledge of doing patchwork (nope, not really, but I have a beginner’s book called ‘Start Quilting’ by Alex Anderson, which helped fill the gaps). Lori’s instructions are clear, though.
I had a good hour or so cutting up the fabrics I’d chosen into squares and rectangles, but now I’ve got the rather scary prospect of stitching them all together to make something worthwhile.
Hmm, I think it’s time for some chocolate….
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Janet Granger's Blog 
That looks nice and colourful.=)
I was wondering, as a new feed reader subscriber to your blog, I notice that you’ve got your feed settings on the first few sentences only. Could you please consider having the full article fed through? Pretty please with sugar on top??
LOL=)
I used to have the whole article fed through if people subscribed to that, but as I like to put images in my blog posts that have large file sizes(so that people can click on them to see the detail)- usually 500 or 800 pixels wide – I found that that caused problems with the formatting for people who were receiving the whole blog post by email. But it does mean that you have to go to the site to read the whole thing. Sorry!
I keep getting tempted by quilting when I see some of the beautiful pieces people make. A mini quilt seems like a nice way to get your toes wet. You’ve chosen a beautiful palette. I look forward to seeing it all worked up.
I felt that I couldn’t commit to making a ‘real size’ bed quilt first, in case it turned out squiffy and I’d spent two years on it, or whatever, so small quilts seemed more sensible. And they’re very cute.
Lovely color choices!
And take heart. I’ve been working on an “English-paper-pieced” star quilt (queen-size bed [as wide as a double, but longer]) off and on since 2008 – it takes forever because there are so many little seams, but it’s really very easy sewing.
And there’s one huge advantage to many little seams: If you need to rip something out, it’s only a couple inches to re-do, not like the entire hem of a circle skirt or set of curtains or something . . .
Star quilt?! Wow, it’ll be a while before I attempt one of those! They’re beautiful, though 🙂