jumping on the bandwagon

I'm actually a little surprised at myself.

I'm not exactly a 'jump on the bandwagon' type of person.

In fact,

It's quite likely 

that I have never before

in the history of

me,

ever

jumped

on a bandwagon.

I was not the least bit interested when I started seeing 

mini minis

around blogland.

I don't even like working with tiny pieces.

And I've never even made a pincushion.

Or a regular mini.

(well - I did make that mug rug that one time....)

Why on earth would I make a mini mini?

But then,

darn it,

Allison posted the sweetest mini mini,

(complete with a pattern/tute!)

that she made for Kitty.

Okay.

This was (sorta) getting personal.

Because,

 I pop in on both Allison and Kitty

about once a week.

And they pop in to visit me on occasion.

And I've had comment/e-mail correspondence with both of them.

So when Allison

talked about this quilt, however blasted small, 

she made for Kitty,

and why she made the choices she made,

I totally got it.

for my friend, Carole, because she just loves chickens with quilts. heehee)

I love making things for people that are 'them'.

And man, she nailed it with The House Where Kitty Lives!

I told her,

"Darn it, Woman, you just might suck me into this tiny craziness!"

And darn it, 

if she didn't reply with, 

"Well, how about you swap with me??"

Argh!

Once I started thinking about what kind of a mini mini I'd make for Allison,

and sketching out some designs,

well,

resistance was futile.

I really wanted to make a flowering snowball,

but I figured it'd be tough on such a small scale,

that center piece is pretty small anyways.

While searching for a paper piecing pattern for it,

(which I didn't find)

I found a pattern called night and day,

and knew it would be perfect.

Allison lives in Germany

(where we once lived...)

and I live in Arkansas.

It's not exactly opposite sides of the world,

but pert' near it.

Near enough that that when it is late at night here,

her day is beginning there.

I printed off the pattern

then shrunk it down to tiny,

cut off the now tiny seam allowances

and added proper 1/4" seam allowances back on.

I gathered my fabric scraps,

choosing ones I thought Allison would like:

a few Anna Maria Horner fabrics,

some Allison Glass and Carolyn Friedlander,

and of course, I had to throw in a piece of Jenean Morrison,

(because if it's remotely possible, I try to add at least one JM print to every quilt)

and an assortment of low volumes for the background.

I got all set to start paper piecing

and my mind went completely blank.

I couldn't make sense of how I needed to go about it!

I'm not a fan of foundation paper piecing anyways,

so I thought 

I could either spend a long time trying to wrap my poor brain around it,

or I could figure out how to piece it without paper.

I went the paperless route.

Not paperless paper piecing,

(because that required too much brain power, too)

just paperless piecing.

I quilted it in my signature style,
a mix of machine and big-stitch hand quilting.

And I am just tickled with how it turned out!

I hope Allison likes it as much as I do :-)

~

I actually didn't have a ton of fun making the (mini mini) quilt top,
but

the finished result was so darn cute,

and

I hadn't made any of my own designs,

so I decided to make her another one.

'Home' is precious to most people,

but especially so for Allison;

She lives in Germany,

but she isn't German.

And sometimes she feels a bit displaced.

She has come to realize 

that home is where your heart is,

it's just that,

some people's hearts

are in more than one place...

So for my second mini mini for Allison,

I made houses

based on some houses on a pillowcase she'd pinned.

Because she loves green

as a sign of growth,

I set the houses on lush green lawns

and because she has a thing for birds, and orange,

I used Waterfront Park Flight in clementine

as my sky.

This mini mini was easy.

After sewing the grass to the sky,

I just cut tiny house shapes after I'd added interfacing to an assortment of scraps

(My kids said, "Oh - you're doing mouse shapes on this one!" 

Yes. I guess I am:-)

and lightly glue basted them in place,

strategically covering birds that would've looked stupid 

with only half showing.

Then I added batting (bamboo)

and thread-painted  my words and outlined my houses.

Allison is not a huge fan of blue,

but I think she'll forgive me for using it on the back,

because this fabric is just too perfect!

It has both places that are home for her.

And hey - it's half orange...

After adding the backing piece,

I echo - outlined the houses

by hand, using a cream colored guterman sew-all thread,

because shockingly, I didn't want those stitches to stand out.

Then I bound it in a leftover strip of fabric from one of my very earliest quilts

folded in half, then cut to 3/4".

Because I think sometimes my corners look better on the back than the front,

I opted to attach the binding backwards.
(I'm not sure how I feel about that.)

It's a totally different style than the first quilt,

but I still like it very much 

and hope Allison feels the same.

~

After all that,

I still had one more mini mini that wanted to be made.

A little challenge for myself, 

if you will.

You see,

everyone says mini minis use such tiny pieces,
that it's best to paper piece for accuracy.

I wanted to see if I could make a patchwork mini mini.
without all this paper piecing nonsense,
and without using interfacing.

(Sure I'd managed to piece the day and night quilt
fairly accurately,
but it only (only!) had 24 pieces,
and was kinda big, for a mini mini)

(Oh gosh.

I forgot to tell you the sizes!

The color wheel day and night quilt is 4 1/2" square,

and "home" is 3 1/2 x 4 1/8)

Ya'll 

this one was fun!

Of course, it helped that there was no pressure whatsoever,
And 

I was using favorite favorite fabrics....

I counted out 48 scraps

and then roughly cut them out a little bigger than a square inch.

Laid them all out on my ironing board and sprayed 'em with my favorite sizing.

Ironed them, 

and grouped them by 3s for cutting.

(the top fabric on each pile would be fussy cut)

After cutting 48

1 inch squares,

well, you know how I sewed 'em together...

then I added bamboo batting

and an Art Gallery backing,

machine quilted in a crosshatch

with off white Aurifil in the needle

and teal some kind of thread

on the bobbin.

Like my previous quilt with these fabrics,

I bound it with a strip of Cotton & Steel,

this time cut to 1 1/2"

(which was too tiny, I had to trim the quilt about 1/16 of an inch)

A patchwork quilt, with squares that finish at 1/2 inch?
Mission accomplished.
 :-)
And now,

I want to give it away!

For a chance to have this

50 fabric

3 1/4" x 4 1/4"

baby patchwork quilt

show up in your mailbox,

tell me,

are you a bandwagon person??

(be sure that you leave your email address if you are a 'no reply blogger')
(or if you don't have a blog)

Allison, I will get your babies in the mail on Monday, after I choose the new owner of the patchwork mini mini :-)

As adorable as these little mini minis are,
it's back to
regular size sewing for me.
Like I told my daughter in law,
in the time I spent playing with these babies,
I could have made a good sized quilt for a real baby...

this picture makes me laugh :D

p.s. If you like the teeny tiny patchwork, and want it,
you don't have to be a 'maker' to get your name in the pot.
It would make a very fine coaster ;-)
or tiny doll quilt...

Linking up with tiny-piecer extraordinaire, Amanda Jean