Each month this year for the Mini Masterpieces QAL, I am remaking each mini quilt from my book in one range of fabric. The quilts in Mini Masterpieces are all scrappy, so I’m enjoying the opportunity to grab a bundle of fun fabric and go… and to show off my friends’ fabrics too!
For the Simple Squares mini quilt, Building Blocks, I used Playground by Dylan M for Windham Fabrics. I previously used her first range, Mazy, for a baby Double Dash quilt for my nephew, and fell in love with her retro style and colours. Getting to play with her next line (out now in shops!) for Building Blocks was a match made in heaven – the perfect mix of fussy cutting opportunities and blenders.
For this quilt, I cut and laid it out as I went, that is, I started with the feature prints I wanted to include, and then mixed and matched as I went to fill in the gaps. To help keep track of my quilt layouts, I always snap a quick pic on my phone just in case the inevitable happens and I get mixed up and/or pieces go flying.
For the backing, I used four fat quarters, making sure to sneak in a bit of selvedge to document the fabric range used for this quilt. I really appreciate a beautifully designed selvedge. Such fun! I don’t tend to use selvedges much, I trim them off and give them to friends! But I’m definitely doing this more.
When it came to quilting, I can’t go past a diagonal crosshatch for patchwork quilts. Simple, effective, and just so quilty. I used Aurifil 2000 from my Mini Masterpieces Aurifil thread collection – the perfect warm, cream shade to blend in with the background fabric and across the prints on the quilt. You can see how it compares to white 2021 and how it blends so much better.
And the final stage, the binding? I alternated the pink and blue blossom prints from Playground for a scrappy binding and voila! A happy Playground mini quilt.
In other fun makes, I also had two wonderful friends from the blog hop last year now making the mini quilts from their given lesson. Sarah made a super bright and scrappy rainbow version with some fun fussy cut features.
And Janice put her long-hoarded bundle of Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt to good use for her Building Blocks mini quilt, arranging the fabrics into colour groups.
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Shasta says
These are all lovely masterpieces!
Karen says
I really enjoy seeing your creations. You inspire me to get busy and make a quilt.
The ninth photo where you show the quilting was a little disappointing. I thought there was too much
quilting on it. The fabrics are soft and beautiful but they don’t show up as well with the quilting. I know
the squares are small and the quilting is perfect but maybe a little too much for the quilt? It may just be
that it is a photo, too.
I love your work and I don’t want this to be a criticism just my opinion. And you certainly know more
about quilting than I will ever know.
Alyce says
When you take photos in direct sunlight, it shows up the quilting due to the shadows created from the “indents” of quilting, and thus becomes a bigger focus of the photo.