Hexie Flowers Mini Quilt & Book Giveaway

It's been awhile since I've made a new mini quilt for myself but now I have a new one to enjoy! 

The pattern for this little mini quilt is found in the new book by Bev McCullough called Make It Mini. The book has 13 patterns and each one includes a bit of embroidery as a part of the project.

And I have a copy of the book to give away today! (details at the end of the post)

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Charming Lucy Mini Quilt + Pillow

Hey everyone!  I have a fun little project to share with you today, and I've created a handy PDF download for it as well. 

Remember when I shared my Charming Lucy baby quilt pattern?  Well ever since then I've wanted to try making a mini quilt version!

The original Charming Lucy uses a charm pack (5" squares), so for this mini I wanted to figure out a way to use a mini charm pack (2.5" squares.)  It turns out that one mini charm pack plus a little background and backing will make an 18" mini quilt or pillow. 

Since I didn't really want to keep a Christmas mini quilt up on my wall year 'round, I decided to make mine into a pillow.  And I've added the instructions for the pillow into the PDF pattern to give you that option as well!

The pillow has an envelope backing (speedy!) with binding on the edges.  I just love adding binding to my pillows.  It frames them up so nicely, don't you think?  Plus it just gives one more opportunity to add some color! 

One thing I've started doing with my mini quilts and pillows recently was to make the outer border slightly larger than needed.  Then after it's quilted I trim it down to size.  Sometimes I find that in the quilting process things can shift a little, and with small projects like this, every 1/4" counts!  The extra border space gives me just a little bit of wiggle room and helps to create a nicer finished project.

For my pillow I used a mini charm pack of Vintage Holiday fabrics by Bonnie & Camille for Moda Fabrics.  

If you're wanting a non-Christmas version, you can see other fun mini charm packs here from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Before you go, be sure to grab the free PDF pattern here. The pattern is available as a free download for all A Bright Corner newsletter subscribers. 

If you make a Charming Lucy mini quilt or pillow I'd love to see it!  Tag me on Instagram (@abrightcorner) or Facebook, and be sure to use the hashtags #charminglucymini and #abrightcornerpatterns. 

Happy sewing!
--Andy

**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.

Scrappy Apples Mini Quilt + Spelling Bee Book

I did a little just-for-fun sewing this week.  After working on some larger and more time consuming projects, it was really nice to work on a quicker project.  It feels good to start and finish a project within a day or two!

This is Scrappy Apples - a little mini quilt that I made for my wall (15" x 15").    I spotted a little apple block in the Spelling Bee book by Lori Holt and I thought it would make a great mini quilt.  

I decided to make four little 6" blocks - and I wanted to make them scrappy (I'll take any opportunity to add scraps into a project!)

I usually struggle deciding how to quilt a mini quilt and this was the case again with the mini apples.  I didn't want the quilting to overpower the apples, but I wanted it to "go" with the look of the mini.  

I ended up doing some small scalloped quilting (a.k.a. clam shell quilting).  I found a small circle template that was the perfect size!  It was one of the Sew Simple Shapes from Lori Holt.  The lines on the template helped me to keep my lines of scallops straight as I went.  I used my water soluble marking pen to draw one row of scallops, then I would quilt that one row.  Then I'd trace a second row and quilt that, and so on.   

It worked great!  And was less time consuming than I expected it to be.  Another bonus was that I didn't even have to switch out my presser foot to a walking foot.  My regular foot worked just fine. 

And when the quilting was done, I sprayed the top with water to make the blue lines disappear!

Here's a view of the quilting from the back - I love how it turned out!

My finished mini is already up on the wall, brightening my sewing space with it's cheery scrappiness.  (Spell checker is telling me that "scrappiness" isn't a real word, but I beg to differ.)  Oh - and I get asked about how I hang my mini quilts - the secret is clear thumbtacks!

Have you heard about the Spelling Bee book?  It's another fantastic book by Lori Holt, jam packed with creativity.  It starts with the block patterns for the entire alphabet - both upper case and lower case, all with options for small (4" x 6") blocks and large (8" x 12") blocks. 

Then there are also picture blocks like the apples I made-- this quilt below shows a few more of them.  The picture blocks also have the option for either 6" or 12" blocks. 

There are also number blocks (0-9), and punctuation blocks, and in the back are pages and pages of quilt ideas! 

I've got my eye on the "Jack" quilt in the photo above, and the globe quilt below.  There are so many great quilt ideas in this book.  And it's a great resource if you ever want to add a name, or other text to a quilt.  How cute would it be to add a child's name to the back of a quilt you've made for them?  

You can find the Spelling Bee book here at the Fat Quarter Shop.  

And right now the Fat Quarter Shop is hosting a Spelling Bee sew along.  On Saturday each week a different blogger is sharing their version of one or two of the blocks in the book.  My week to share is not for quite awhile but I couldn't help myself - I HAD to make those cute little apples!  

You can find the blocks they've already completed here.  

**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.  

Five Friday Favorites: Favorite Mini Quilts

Happy Friday everyone!  For this week's installment of Five Friday Favorites, I'm sharing my current favorite Mini Quilt Patterns!

Mini Quilts are a fun way to add color to walls, they make great gifts, and they're (usually) quicker to finish than a regular sized quilt.  Here are my current top 5 favorite minis.

#1:  Arabesque

photo credit: Allison Jensen (Woodberry Way blog)

One thing I love about mini quilts is that it takes such a small amount of fabric.  It's  a great way to use up the last little scraps of your most favorite fabrics.  This mini uses only 8 charms (5" squares) and 1/3 yard of background fabric.  Arabesque was designed by Allison  Jensen a.k.a. Woodberry Way, and it's a free tutorial on Allison's blog.  And if you love this mini, then you'll probably also love the full size version of the quilt which is available as a free tutorial over on the Moda Bakeshop blog.  (link here)

#2:  Dresden Mini

photo credit:  Fort Worth Fabric Studio blog

I've been wanting to try my hand at a dresden block or two for awhile now.  But honestly I don't see myself making a whole quilt of them.  A mini is a great way to try a new technique, or to try a more challenging block without committing to a larger project.  I've made a few minis this way - just make one quilt block and bind it - voila!  You have a mini quilt!  

This Dresden Mini is a free downloadable PDF from the Fort Worth Fabric Studio blog.  I think it's so sweet made in the 1930's prints

#3:  Mini Scrap Quilt

photo credit:  Amy Smart, tutorial found on Flamingo Toes blog

Like I said above, a mini quilt is a great way to try out a new-to-you technique.  This mini, designed by Amy Smart uses foundation paper piecing to create each block.  I love this mini because it's a fun way to use up those "strings" that are in your scrap bin - the strips of fabric that you love but are too thin to do much with.  I know we all have them!  I actually took a class from Amy where she taught this technique.  This scrappy selvages pillow is what I made from the class!  

You can find the free tutorial for this mini quilt here on the Flamingo Toes blog.

#4:  Mini Patchwork Pineapple

photo credit:  Sassafras Lane Designs

I've had a good friend give me a couple of pineapple mini quilts and I just love them - they're so stinkin' cute!  This mini is designed by Sassafras Lane Designs and is a free tutorial available on their blog.  And don't feel limited to just using your yellow scraps!  I've seen some really cute pink, aqua and orange pineapples too.  

#5:  Mini Spools

photo credit:  Camille Roskelley (Thimbleblossoms pattern shop)

I mean, come on.  How cute is this?  It's just MEANT to hang on a sewing room wall.  Mini Spools is just one of the many adorable mini quilts designed by Camille Roskelley (Thimbleblossoms).  You can see the others here in her pattern shop, and see pics of her wall of mini quilts here in this blog post.  Out of all of her mini quilts, the Mini Spools quilt is my favorite.  By FAR! 

Want to see some of my other favorites (many are on my want-to-make list!)  Check out my mini quilt board on Pinterest.  And for more mini quilt inspiration, check out #miniquilt on Instagram.  As always, thanks for following along and I hope you have a great weekend!  

A Mini Finish

My mini quilt wall is growing!  Last week I added two new ones – one called "Petunia" that I will release next week as a new pattern, and this one made with the new Gooseberry Fabric (by Vanessa Goertzen for Moda).  Back in September The Fat Quarter Shop did an English Paper Piecing (EPP) Sew Along on Instagram and I joined in.  You can read more about the sew along here.



Most of the hand sewing (making the diamonds and stitching them together) was done while watching tv/movies in the evenings.  I’m the kind of girl that always has to have a project to work on while I watch tv.  I’d say for me, the trickiest bit of this mini was hand appliqueing the star to the background.  But once I figured it out, it went pretty quickly!



You can still buy the EPP Sew Along Kit here (theirs uses the Meadowbloom fabric) or you can just purchase the 2” 6 Point Star paper pieces here and use fun scraps from your stash!

Sue Daley has helpful youtube tutorials about how to sew the diamonds together here.  It’s really helpful to watch these if you’re a beginner (or semi-beginner like me) because she shows how to glue baste the fabric to the paper pieces and how the pieces fit together.

Fast, Fun and Gifty

Happy, happy Monday!  I sure love Mondays.  I can clean my house and it stays clean until at least 3 pm when the kids come running home with their backpacks, papers, books and cloud of school-ish stuff.
 

Today I wanted to share some exciting news!  My Serendipity pillow made the cover of a book – wahoo!  I knew that the pattern would be included in the book, but I had no idea it would be on the cover until I opened my mail the other day.  Such a nice surprise. 

And today over on the Connecting Threads blog I’m sharing more about the pillow in the Gifty Galore blog series.  Go check it out!  
 

 
There are some really good projects in the book – all of them designed to be quick, handmade gift ideas.  One of my favorites is this Buttons and Bows Mini Quilt designed by Stephanie Dunphy.  It finishes at 13” square and I think would make a nice addition to my growing wall of mini quilts. 



I also love this First Snow Quilt designed by Shelley Cavanna (Cora’s Quilts). That navy background is perfect! 

You can find the book here at a great price!  I believe all of the projects from the book are also available as individual downloads.  The individual pattern for the Serendipity pillow is here.

Thanks for stopping by!  

Scrappy Strawberry

Have you heard about Lori Holt’s new book, Farm Girl Vintage?  I’ve seen bits of it here and there around Instagram but it wasn’t until I saw it in person and had a friend show me how awesome it is that I had to buy it for myself. 



There are a few projects in the book that are now on my to-do list, but one little block went immediately to the top of the list -



I just thought this little strawberry block was so sweet!  I pulled out my bin of 2.5” squares and found my favorite reds along with a few greens.  It didn’t take me long to make the one block. 



I quilted it last night, and bound it this morning while I caught up on some podcasts.



Sometimes these quick little projects are so fun.  It’s nice to start and finish something in the same week :)



The finished block measures 12” and I added a 2” border all the way around to frame it up. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great Friday (yay for Friday!) and if you haven’t had a chance to enter the book giveaway on my last post, be sure to click back and leave a comment.  Giveaway ends on Monday!

Oh and Lori is doing a Farm Girl Vintage sew along - you can join in over on her blog!  It will be fun to see what everyone creates!

Titch Mini Quilt

This last weekend I finally had the chance to quilt and bind my mini quilt from March.  I first talked about this pattern here.  It’s called Titch from Miss Rosie’s Quilt Co and it sure was fun to make!  I had never worked with such tiny pieces before!

My Titch mini has found a home right next to my Division test quilt – that’s the one I made when I was first testing out my Division pattern.  The blocks are regular size, so I wouldn’t exactly call it a mini-quilt.  I love seeing it up there though!



I’d been kind of frozen with indecision about how to quilt this little thing.  I kept going back and forth with different ideas and then on Saturday I just decided that a finished quilt is always better than an unfinished one so I just started quilting.

 
In the end I love what I did simply because it’s done!  One more project crossed off my WIP list for the year – yay! 

So now that the Titch Mini is on the wall, I realize that I need another mini to fill the hole on the top left corner.  Do you have any recommendations for me?  What’s your favorite mini quilt pattern?