Friday 27 June 2014

Autumn with a Twist Mini

Sometimes, when I'm making a quilt, it's easy to calculate and cut exactly the right number of pieces at the start. Usually I err on the side of caution and cut slightly more than I think I'll need, in case I lose a piece or mess something up and have to discard something. However, with equilateral triangle quilts, I often seem to end up cutting more than a few extra triangles.

Autumn with a Twist Mini

I had a bunch of triangles left over from my Autumn with a Twist quilt, and used them to make this mini. I really started it so I would have something to demonstrate joining the rows of triangles with in my equilateral triangle quilt class. To mix things up a bit, instead of a random layout, I grouped the triangles by colour so they make hexagon shapes. That was fun but I think the hexagon shapes would be more obvious if it was a larger piece (or used smaller triangles).

My last class in this series of three covered quilting and binding, but I knew my students wouldn't get up to the stage of binding their own quilts by the end of the class. So I lightly quilted this mini to emphasise the hexagon shapes, and then used it to demonstrate how to bind a quilt. When I was learning, the trickiest part of binding for me was remembering how to make the mitred corners of binding (you know, when you hit the corner and fold the binding away from the quilt and then back over itself). Because of this I wanted people to be able to have a go at performing the folding action themselves so they would really understand how it was done (and hopefully remember, with the help of my written instructions, for when they were doing it at home).

Autumn with a Twist Mini

I used a fun bright print for the back of this mini - I just had a fat quarter which happened to be the perfect size. I always enjoy hand stitching binding, but on something like this it's particularly satisfying because it's a pretty short job (and hour or so in front of the TV and you're done).

Autumn with a Twist Mini

I could have made this mini into a cushion or a wall hanging, but I was feeling too lazy to put a back or a hanging sleeve on it so it's just a plain old mini quilt. It turns out it's just the right size for one cat to spread out on or two cats to snuggle up on.


There's nothing weird about making your cats a couch quilt that matches your couch quilt, right...?

I'll be linking up with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

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7 comments:

Afton Warrick said...

Why not? They deserve it. What would Caturday Wisdom be without them?

Paula@TheSassyQuilter said...

I always have a lot of triangles too! I should do a mini or two or ten:) love these fabrics and it looks like your furbies do too!

Charlotte said...

I love those colours so much!

Lucy | Charm About You said...

Gorgeous! I love the colours too and sweet to include the cat print for the cats :)

Lynda Halliger Otvos (Lynda M O) said...

Kitties are the best. We found ours asleep in the stroller when we locked up to go to bed last night. So cute-she barely fits, she's such a big girl.

Cille said...

Good to know I'm not the only one who always cuts too much fabric :) and no, there's nothing strange about making a quilt for your cat. I always try to make my cats lay on a quilt rather than on the couch directly. Too much cat hair :)

Erica said...

I love the colors! I have found that I like to have a few mini quilts just hanging around the house to cover tables and blank surfaces. They are great for everything!