Mini Masterpieces QAL: Snowballs

Welcome to March, and month three of the Mini Masterpieces QAL! Thanks for your patience at the small delay of officially starting this month. I have been so touched with the support at the loss of Susanne Woods, the founder of my publisher, Lucky Spool. I can assure you that Mini Masterpieces (and all other Lucky Spool books) will continue to be sold around the world, and I am expecting more stock early next month after the Australian distributor had sold out of their first shipment (yay!).

So, February and strip piecing! You can find out the block and quilt winners here, but here’s a quick snapshot of just some of the gorgeous makes shared on Instagram using #MiniMasterpiecesQAL, including Marieke who finished her very first quilt ever and this extremely touching story behind Cherry’s quilt:

You can find more in the Facebook group and also see the Paradigm version of the Third Rail quilt I made here.

MARCH – SNOWBALL BLOCKS

This month is all about taking simple squares one step further by turning them into snowball blocks.

The Snowball sampler block is great for growing these skills:

• Accurate seams
• Accurate (careful) pressing
• Easy corner triangles

Image by Page + Pixel for Lucky Spool

The Abacus mini quilt is also good for trying out:

• Strip piecing
• Monochromatic colour palette

MARCH PRIZES

To enter, you can either post a photo of your month’s project in the Blossom Heart Quilts group on Facebook in this month’s photo album (not sure how to do that? Click here to find out how), or post it on Instagram using the QAL hashtag #MiniMasterpiecesQAL. Either method is acceptable, just be sure to do it by March 31st, 2020 (in your timezone). Monthly winners will be selected at random, and announced by updating this post + in the Facebook group + on Instagram on April 1, 2020.

For all the QAL details including prize eligibility, read this post here.

Block Prize
If you’re sewing along making the sampler blocks this year, that’s awesome! Each month, there’ll be a mix of patterns, notions, and other little goodies on offer. This month, the prize is two PDF patterns from one of this month’s bloggers, Kitty from Night Quilter – her iconic Sew Tiny Sampler, and her latest pattern, Staggered.

Quilt Prize
If you’re making mini quilts or some other type of fully finished product with the mini quilt pattern or turning the sampler block into a finished product (pillow, bag, zippered pouch, etc), this month’s prize is this little bundle of fabrics from Jetty by Carolyn Friedlander.

Winners

Congratulations to Kathryn for winning the block prize.

Congratulations to Jenny for winning the quilt prize.

What you need

• A copy of Mini Masterpieces – you can buy a copy from these various stockists
  
• A sewing machine (or hand sewing supplies!) and basic quilting supplies
• Your favourite fabrics – all the fabric requirements are listed on pages 21-22 for the block and mini quilt

Recommended

• Colouring sheet planner
• 6 1/2″ square ruler
• Washi tape or quarter-inch machine foot
• Starch or starch alternative spray

I have had many requests for a colouring sheet for the mini quilts to help personalise and plan your mini quilts. I love to include these in my quilting patterns, and being a big pre-planner myself, I understand this request on a very deep level, ha! Click here to fill in your details to be sent this month’s planning page and to be notified when the rest are released.

TIPS FOR SNOWBALL BLOCKS

The biggest job with snowball quilt blocks, and every other quilt block that uses the easy corner triangles method, is marking the back of all those squares. In Mini Masterpieces, I recommend instead using washi tape on your sewing machine to mark the stitch line. Since writing that, Cluck Cluck Sew has since come out with the genius product of Diagonal Seam Tape. Aussies – you can buy it from The Next Stitch here. As someone who was always using washi tape to do this, I am now obsessed with this stuff and tell everyone about it!

This saves so much time marking your fabric, and is such great value for money with 10yds of tape per roll… you perhaps use 4-6″ at a time and it sticks to your machine for quite a while as well, meaning you’re not replacing it all the time.

Snowball sampler quilt block by @nightquilter

Snowball sampler quilt block turned into cushion by @arabesquescissors

TIPS FOR ABACUS

Fun fact: Abacus is definitely the most commented-on quilt in the book – the monochromatic choice of fabric and the choice of the print for the snowball blocks creates a bit of a mind-bending illusion. So if you’re wondering what fabric to choose, I can highly recommend monochromatic. I’m personally going to be trying something else

The Abacus mini quilt includes both strip piecing and snowball blocks, so if you sewed along last month, you’ll be well-practiced and ready to go this month. The size of Abacus is the same as last month’s quilt too, so if you’ve been inspired by all the Third Rail cushions that were created, now’s your chance to try that too.

I would also love to share what @quilt351 did with the Abacus pattern, making a set of 3 mini quilts to create a triptych for her wall…

So who’s ready to build a snowman?! I’ll be sewing along too and sharing as I go on Instagram – @blossomheartquilts – and in the Facebook group. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments and I’ll respond to you there.