Monday, July 21, 2014

Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny, Yellow Polka-dot....

...half square triangle.

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While working on another project that will remain under wraps for a while yet, I decided to save my twofers (that's what I call the corner triangles that you cut off when doing stitch and flip triangles on the corner of larger squares or rectangles like snowballs or flying geese). These ones are very small, and I trimmed them up to 1 1/8" square after piecing them with their low-volume backgrounds.  

I'm in the market for a mini-quilt gift for a friend so I figured this made a good starting point. Without a real plan, I sewed the tiny half-squares together to create an on-point checkerboard. After that, 6" squares of low volume prints (including one of my old poppyprints) were added as a large border.

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I still had a little pile of the jewel tone scraps lying on my cutting mat, so thought about ways to use them on this border. I've been admiring a lot of applique on IG lately and have been thinking about a little project to have on hand for stitch sessions with friends.  I envisioned a curvy vine around the patchwork with some appliqued berries scattered around.  I dug out my late FIL's old Flexi-curve from his graphic design supplies (which we still keep in a rolling cart: french curves, circle and oval templates, T-squares, india ink, pigma pens, Lettraset...etc) and marked out the curve with a Frixion pen.

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I used this technique to machine applique the bias vine, matching the raw edges of the folded bias strip with the drawn line.  The 1" berries were prepared this way (except I used a thread spool and stamp pad to mark the circles on the fusible interfacing).  

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My next step is to fuse them to the background and have them all ready to stitch down at tonight's annual outdoor meeting of the VMQG.  I'm not sure where this mini-quilt is headed after that...but maybe someone will have an idea at tonight's meeting. That is the wonderful thing about stitching with friends: there is never a shortage of great ideas!


15 comments:

Debbie said...

Love that itty bitty piece of patchwork!

What Comes Next? said...

too cute! and what a clever idea to stamp the circles using a spool!

Krista said...

This is gorgeous K1! Those teeny triangles are so awesome!

elnorac said...

Oh, Krista, this is fabulous! So creative, and such a great use of your precious twofers, which are hard to use but are def too sweet to discard. Yum, yum, yum!

Catherine said...

Look forward to seeing the end result

pennydog said...

So so teeny and fabulous!

Joy said...

I agree with "What Comes Next". Your stamp pad and spool method of marking circles is genious! Love your itty bitties.

Dianne said...

Love the teensy weensy piecing and dots! Can't wait to see the completed piece before it finds its new home.

karen said...

it was lovely to see this in person at vmqg meeting- they are really tiny hst s!

momiji said...

So that's what I saw you working on at the guild meeting! It's lovely, and I'll look forward to seeing the end result!

Leanne said...

I love the tiny HSTs. I bet you had fun stitching outside with your guild.

Tracey Jacobsen said...

so pretty!

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

Very cute! I used my leftover HST's for a block challenge with one of my guilds.

Katy Cameron said...

Great collection of techniques in one teeny quilt! I love my flexible curve for pattern designing, albeit that I normally use it for bears!

CitricSugar said...

So glad to know I'm not the only nutbar who saves all those tiny cut-offs and makes teeny tiny patchwork! :-)

Love it.