Friday, February 25, 2011

"My Favorite Things" Mini Quilt

Making miniature quilts is one of my many hobbies.  I tend to go in cycles with my hobbies.  Cross stitching was one of my first obsessions many years ago.  I'm thinking of getting back into that.  I just gave my DIL a cross stitch lesson.  Lately I've been very much into knitting.  I like knitting because it's so portable and I can travel easily with it.  But between the cross stitching and the knitting was a large obsession with quilting.  I especially liked making miniature quilts.  I find it to be more of an art than utilitarian.  I 've continued to quilt, even through my knitting phase.  There's just something about the feel of good fabrics and making the seems and stitches and points as perfect as I can get them.

Here is one of my first miniature quilts.  I tend to really enjoy small, precise work and so challenged myself at making miniature applique squares.  Here is my little sampler that I call, "My Favorite Things".



Since I can't stand to part with this, it hangs on the wall with several of my other mini quilts in my little studio.


This quilt is a total of 17" square.  Each of the nine little squares is 3-3/4".



 All the applique is done by hand by the "turn under" method.  Then I padded or stuffed many of the appliques to give it some puff and dimension.
These little berries were a little time consuming in order to keep them as round as I could.  They're very tiny.
I embroidered the veins on the leaves and the eye of the bird.

Beads and pearls were sewn onto the center of the flowers.




The center of these flowers I made with silk ribbon french knots.



I put little heart charms on the collars of the cat and the dog.

A few little button embellishments.


I hand quilted this, which I love to do, but it is very time consuming.  It's not too bad on these little quilts, though.  This whole process is so relaxing for me and I love to see all these little bits and pieces of fabrics, beads, buttons and floss come together into a "picture".

I do make little 4" quilts that I frame and sell in my Etsy shop, but I won't part with these larger minis.

I'm linking today to Cindy's Show and Tell Friday
And Alison's Fridays Unfolded

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