Update on The Mini-Quilt

Using templates to do the center square

Hand sewing my cut fabrics together

Pressing with the "Hera" marker

A close up

the finished ctr square

I have decided to Hand Sew my Mini Quilt so I could sit in my comfy easy chair, watch "Gold Rush" and a few other favorite shows and work on my piecing.  1st I looked thru my scrap bag for fabric scraps I wanted to use & prepared the scraps by using "Mary Ellen's" Best Press clear starch alternative to give them some stiffness. (I always use a square of muslin under them to catch the spray & protect my Ironing board).  After pressing the fabrics  I measured paper piecing templates given in my pattern & made templates out of "Dritz" No-melt Mylar template plastic. I cut my pieces and began hand stitching the center together. I pressed open the seams using my "Hera" marker , a handy tool I discovered to help give me a sharp "finger" pressing without having to go back and forth to use my iron.

 

 

 Products I used to help me with this project.

Project - a small quilt.

 

 

Last summer a friend gave me a whole box of old quilting magazines she had gathered from her mother's home.  I was thrilled to recieve these magazines.  I would take a handful from the box and place them at my bedside where I could read thru them at bedtime and during the night when I awoke.  I love to read thru old quilting magazines, the patterns are so lovley and they are so inspiring.  I came across one magazine called "Small Quilts" -spring/summer 2004 edition and came across one pattern that I just fell in love with.  "A Star is Born", was originally an orphan block quilted by reader Deborah Hersko from Spokane Wa..  She had sent in her paper pieced block to a recent orphan block challange.  Sr Editor Jean Ann Wright took the block and added lovley borders to the block which resulted in this sweet 12" mini quilt.  I took a look at the pattern and thought of the bag of scraps my friend Elaine had given to me...(I love to collect scraps from my friends.)  There were some pretty christmasy scraps in there I could use.  I copied the templates and choose the fabrics.  This was the my 1st time working with such small pieces.  I liked the results but I found that the pieces did not lay flat so I used some spray starch and gave it a light press with a dry Iron. This did result in a nice flat piece as shown in the 1st picture above. 

 

I found using the small templates and the fabric rather difficult so I decided to Spray starch my fabrics before cutting them with a dry Iron.  I am also thinking of making a template using this piece of mylar I had to see if I could be more presise in my piecing.  I will let you how well this works for me