Tesselated (Connected) Leaves

I had such a fun time making this little quilt! You can read about the inspiration for this project here. I surely wasn't looking for a new project, having hundreds, maybe thousands of projects in various stages of unfinishedness! However, sometimes an idea just won't leave me alone, so I whipped up this little fall quilt using the Connecting Corners technique. (You can see some of my other Connected quilts here.) I just love using this technique and if I see a quilt pattern where it could be used, I will try it out! I fiddled around with block sizes, making the first few out of proportion, until I figured out the correct measurements for constructing a 1 1/2" block.

I pieced the top and added a border of fall fabric that my husband brought back from Vermont when he briefly visited this year. I wanted him to know how much I love it when he brings me fabric and so I used it in the first quilt I could!

Then I started the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and had about 1/4 of the quilting finished when I noticed a mistake! See how the piece that the seam ripper is pointing to is the wrong colour...it should be green!

What's a quilter to do? Would you leave it there? Would you hope that no one noticed? I berated myself for a bit, wondering how on earth I didn't see that before I started the quilting!!! But I just knew that would always bug me, and I would see it every time I looked at the quilt, so I had to fix it.

I picked out part of the quilting, folded the quilt top back, and frog stitched that offending piece. On the right is the quilt top with the new hole applied! Then I sewed on a green corner, resewed the seams, and continued on with the quilting!

And then I decided that there wasn't enough definition between the leaves section and the border, so I stitched on some bias seam binding strips I found in my cupboard and liked it much better.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American blog readers! One of my dearest friends is a transplanted American and she is inviting a bunch of her friends over to celebrate her holiday traditions tomorrow. We had our turkey day in October, so I am looking forward another one with her! I found this interesting recipe (from reading Judy's blog) and I'm going to make some to take tomorrow...nothing like trying a new recipe out on your friends!

Connected Hearts

I am starting to feel better every day...finally! It was a good week to miss since my children only had a 3 day school week (Monday was Family Day and Friday was a P.D. day) which meant they were around to help out more, and there was less running around for me to do. It also meant I was home when the hot water heater sprung a leak, and had to be quickly replaced.

But I missed teaching a quilt class that I was looking forward to. The project was this 8" square Valentine's mini quilt that I am calling "Connected Hearts".I got the idea from the "Connecting Stars" minis I was making (click here to see some), and thought that by changing the direction of the connecting corners, you could make hearts instead of stars. It was really fun to sew, and is made from 5" charm squares, including the backing and binding.

I am so glad to be feeling better because this week is quilt retreat! One of the things I did to pass the time while laying in bed this week was to think about what projects I would take to work on, convincing myself that I would only work on UFO's. I would not have time and energy to go shopping so I wouldn't start anything new. It sounded like a good idea when I was sick, and now it doesn't sound very exciting! What was I thinking?!?! I was clearly delirious!

Connecting Stars

Around Christmas time there were a lot of bloggers making a starry table runner. Click here to see a few finished runners on Monica Solorio-Snow's blog. Click here to download the free pattern if you are interested in making one. It finishes 16" x 40".

If you have read my blog before, you might know how much I love to sew anything with connecting corners. Why, you might ask?? I have no idea! I just find it fun to sew.

I have made a similar version of this star design with connecting corners many times for gifts.

This is my latest version and it is 8" x 10". I made it for my niece's birthday gift. It will match her sofa colours perfectly. Better pop it in the mail since her birthday was groundhog day!

Here are a couple of my older minis. On the left is a mini from about 2004 that has 9 stars instead of 12. And on the right is a Christmasy version that was hanging in a sunny window. I have always liked the striped fabric binding on that one! And below is a larger version at 18.5" square made from batik fabrics.

I have been having some fun with a variation of this design for Valentine's day so check back later to see that version.

Also, if you haven't entered my draw to win one of my mini quilts, click here and join in the fun!

There are 70 people signed up so far and if I reach 100 I'll add a third gift to giveaway!

More "Connecting Corners" Quilts

In January I wrote about my enjoyment in using the connecting corners piecing technique (see posts from Jan. 14 and 16). This week the students from one of my miniature quiltmaking classes brought in their amazing finished projects (from the previous class in January). I am always so thrilled with the creative ways in which these women interpret each project, through their fabric selections, design ideas, and quilting choices.

In that class, they had a choice of block size and block design based on the connecting corners technique. The smaller scrappy version used a block size of 1 1/4" (unfinished) with corner pieces cut at 7/8"! These are the three finished projects from the quilters who braved the really mini version:

It was a challenging size to work with and didn't they do a great job on their quilts?!?

The larger version used 1 1/2" squares and required more coordination of the fabric colours to form hugs or kisses, whichever they preferred. Again each quilt is unique in terms of colour selection (notice the chocolate kisses in the middle of the bottom row??!?), use of sashing (or not) and in terms of border treatments.

They are beautiful miniature quilts, most of which were finished in time for Valentine's Day. And those that are still "in progress" will be ready for next year's Valentine's celebrations!

Connecting Corners

One of my favorite techniques to play with, especially on a miniature scale is "connecting corners". I first tried this technique in the late 90's, when I made a mystery quilt written by Susan Druding called Four Star Square. (Susan attributes this technique to Mary Ellen Hopkins.) On the right is the mystery quilt I made from this pattern. It is a 40" square wallhanging.
Since then I have had lots of fun playing with the technique and have made many miniature quilts over the years using variations of this block...
starting with a square and sewing a triangle on one, two, three or all four corners, then playing with layout designs. Also, by changing the size of the connecting corner, you can get different effects. On the left is a quilt I finished last year called "Flower Children". The flower blocks are made of four petals. Each petal has three white connecting corners and one dark green connecting corner.
Below is a scan of my latest miniature quilt using connecting corners. The blocks are .75" finished and the finished quilt is 6.75" square. (See Dec. 10th blog for photo of some of the pieces sitting on my ruler ready for sewing.) I played with some design ideas on EQ5 until I found this border that I liked. The binding is made from a piece of ribbon.
I am teaching this miniature pattern this week to other miniature enthusiasts, who will hopefully enjoy making their version as much as I enjoyed making mine. However, one of the quilters has already emailed me to say that she has cut the tiny pieces for the class, but instead of calling them squares, she calls them "swears"! I think that means she's not enjoying it so far!!!