March Mini Madness

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors are all making a mini quilt using Island Batik fabrics, to celebrate March Mini Madness.  I debated what kind of mini quilt to make- I love to make minis!  My last book Little Gems is all 12" x 12" quilts- so those are minis.   I could make another quilt that size...

Images from Little Gems by Connie Kauffman Martingale 2015
Used by Permission.  Photos by Brent Kane  All rights reserved

I finally decided to go really small and make a mini of a mini!  Which quilt from the book should I try to make even smaller....hum...I finally decided on Serenity

Images from Little Gems by Connie Kauffman Martingale 2015
Photos by Brent Kane.   All rights reserved

This quilt is a great pattern.  Because of the small size of the pieces and using a good variety of fabrics- this is a great quilt for using up leftover 2 1/2" strip packs.  I told in the book how it is a great quilt for using up scraps and how there is really no right or wrong placement of colors.  It would be a great quilt to enlarge the pattern and make as a lap quilt or larger.  I never thought about making it smaller, but now I was curious how small I could go and what it might look like.

I decided to use an assortment of 14 different London Fog Island Batiks that I had leftover from another project (the more fabrics the better!).

Click here to see the whole line of London Fog.

Here is my mini of the quilt Serenity- 6" x 6"

Here is a photo of the blocks before it was all sewn together.  See the coin for an idea of the size.

And here it is beside the 12" x 12" version.  Notice the great Ackfeld Wire stands the quilts are on. I love to display my quilts on these stands

The pattern pieces were 1" finished.  That's pretty small- even for me!  Here are a couple hints that are especially helpful for making very small blocks.

1.  Use thin paper for printing your patterns
2.  Trim seams to about 1/8"
3.  Use glue stick to attach the first piece so that the pin doesn't distort the whole paper
4.  Use a very thin batting (I used Hobbs Thermore Batting)

Have you ever made a mini quilt?  Give it a try!