When Quiltmaker decided to do a Small Quilts issue, I raised my hand. “Sure, I have some small designs.”
Now, I don’t make many small quilts, but a couple of years ago I toyed with the idea of entering a small quilt in a local guild show. I wanted to make my own Amish-style quilt after “oohing” and “ahhing” over a display of Amish quilts from the collection of Faith and Stephen Brown at The Denver Art Museum. And I had some luscious solid-color cotton sateens that would work very nicely. So, I sat down with Electric Quilt to play. I thought my fat quarters were just the right colors for a Carolina Lily block—but did I have enough fabric? I re-colored and resized blocks until it worked out just right. It was only after I printed out the diagrams for a 5” block that I realized the flower would require sewing teeny, tiny set-in seams. I can do set-in seams. But these are really tiny!
The first lily block
What was I thinking? I filed the design away in my design notebook and moved on.
Pulling out the design again two years later did not immediately jog my memory about the set-in seams. I still liked the design. But could I find a way to make it easier and still keep it small? How about a version with flying geese and triangle squares. Better, but the patches and seams are still very tiny and intimidating.
The second lily block. Still a lot of tiny seams.
After pondering the possibilities for a few days, another QM staffer asked if it could be foundation-pieced. Why didn’t I think of that? I love foundation piecing!
The final block uses 3 foundations for the flowers and another for the stems along with some easy non-foundation piecing.
The final block made with foundation piecing.
The blocks came together quickly and easily. I wish you could see the beautiful quilting by ZJ Humbach in the finished quilt.
Here is the block made from the Christmas in Baltimore fabrics by Mimi Dietrich for P&B Textiles. (You can purchase a kit for Christmas Lilies.)
Christmas Lilies
Now that I have mastered this small block, I’m thinking I should do another. Maybe a companion piece. I have more fat quarters…(Somebody stop me!)
No one is going to stop you , you did a great job. Haven’t done any minis myself yet.
It looks lovely. It should be fun to make some more
I’ve made one miniature paper pieced quilt and it was a lot of fun. I will have to try this one as well, it is pretty.
How about doing an applique issue with something other than flowers. We don’t get enough ideas and patterns for raw edge applique unless it’s flowers.