Do you like little things? I love miniature things! Anything that is normally large reproduced in a tiny size just gets me smiling and feeling all warm and fuzzy. (See below for my collection of tiny cooking pots and a chance to win a free panel of the Mini Scrap Grid!)
I like to take my tiny scraps from making a quilt and use them to make a miniature quilt. This spring at market, I found a great new product that you may enjoy as much as I am enjoying it. It is a fusible interfacing that utilizes one inch scraps to produce a tiny 9 patch block that when finished, measures only 1½ inches!
I usually only save scraps over 2 inches. However with this product, there are lots of possibilities for smaller scraps! And best of all Joan Ford (well known for her ScrapTherapy® techniques) has made it easy by including a step by step tutorial on her website hummingbird-highway.com/mini-scrap-grid-how-to/.
The product is called Mini Scrap Grid Interfacing. Below is a picture of what it looks like.
Mini Scrap Grid Interfacing
Start by cutting up your scraps into 1 inch squares. If you are using the leftovers from a quilt or project, the colors should work nicely together. Place the pieces on the side of the interfacing that has the fusible bubbles. The + sign on the interfacing is your placement guide. One corner of each block should be placed right side up in the four right angles of the plus sign. When all nine are in place, use an iron to secure or fuse them. The dotted lines will be visible before and after fusing. The blocks are one thread larger than the 1 inch squares so that they can be folded for seaming. Genius!
1 inch blocks are placed on the interfacing with just a thread length of spacing between each one
The solid lines are the sewing lines. Fold along the dotted lines and stitch after checking to make sure the solid lines match up. Here you can see what it looks like after sewing all the seams in one direction. Doesn’t it look like it is a perspective shot? Nope it is shot straight on, just that the seams make it look skinny in the middle!
View after two seams in one directions has been sewn
Then you use the + sign as the clipping guide to cut the seam. Sew the remaining seams. Here is the block before squaring them up. Resize them to be exactly 2 inches before stitching them together. This will rid them of the extra thread-sized lines and allow for perfect piecing.
The block after being sewn, and before trimming to 2 inches
The interfacing is very thin and sheer so it adds no weight or stiffness to your project. You can see the different fabrics from the back side so it is easy to tell where to make the clips so the fabrics are separated before stitching the other direction.Viola! Your mini 9 patch block is ready to sew to into your quilt top!
The block after being trimmed. It appears distorted only because it is curling up a little. It is actually square!
I pressed the inner block seams toward the center. If you clip between the blocks you can make those tiny 4 patches which help the block to lay flat for quilting.
If you clip between the fabrics, you get perfect little 4 patches on the back for the seams to lay flat
With the blocks sewn I then add the setting blocks. After seeing them together, I decide to create a fussy cut center block from the Blank Quilting Mosaic Garden fabric in place of the pieced block. It will go on the back with the label.
Here are the trimmed blocks along with the setting blocks
The first border is a solid black 1 inch which finished at 1/2 inch. The outer border is the Mosaic Garden fabric.
The quilt top ready for layering and quilting
I like to use loose batting for miniature quilts. This is just a personal preference. I think it allows them to be floppy and behave more like a large quilt that weighs a lot more. The batting I use is actually cotton stuffing from Quilter’s Dream.
Quilter’s dream loose cotton stuffing
Here is the loose batting layered on the back of the quilt top before the backing is added.
The loose batting spread over the back of the quilt top
Quilting for this quilt includes stitching around the blocks in the ditch as well as the black border in the ditch. I hand quilted the flower border, and diagonally through the 9 patches. Binding is a black polka dot. Of course, no job is finished until the paper work is done! Here is the mini label for the back. I used the one block left over so it goes with the label.
Mini quilt label using left over block
Hhere is a photo, as promised, of my miniature cooking pots. I hung the quilt in the background. Note the size of the Aurifil thread spool in relation to the pots. I think my grandmother received these pots as part of purchasing regular sized pots in the 1950’s. I keep them near my thread collection and love to see them when I am sewing!
(Click on the photo to enlarge it.)
The finished quilt along with my tiny pot collection
I promised a chance to win a free panel of the Mini Scrap Grid interfacing, so here is how to enter: Click on the following link to my website and add your name to the email mailing list. It is on the right of the home page. I will collect all the names entered and draw at the end of the Notion Commotion Blog Hop, July 17th. Good luck!
Here is the Link:
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