Shadow Block Mini Quilt Quilt Along Reveal Day

Why make one mini quilt when you can make six? It was fun adapting my Shadow Block Mini Quilt tutorial to make this set of colorful place mats for my kitchen. Janice, from Color, Creating and Quilting, and Jen, from A Dream and a Stitch hosted an awesome quilt along that wraps up today. Of course I had to join right in. But before I dive into the making of these, here are all the fun gals who participated in the quilt along. Click on over to their blogs to check out their Shadow Block mini quilt making:

Jen Rosin at A Dream and a Stitch

Janice Holton at Color, Creating and Quilting

Amanda Everest at Quiltologie

Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication

Bonnie Stapleton at Institches with Bonnie

Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Joanne Harris at Quilts by Joanne

Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts

Mary Schuberg at Needled Mom

At first, I planned to make just one mini quilt, using the tutorial exactly as it was written, but I'm not one to make the same project over and over, so I changed it up just a little so that it could become something useful and beautiful. For color, I decided to lean on trusty ROY G BIV. Do you remember learning the colors of the rainbow this way? And, since the original mini quilt was made using fabrics from Kaffe Fassett and friends, I pulled out my Kaffe stash and lined them up.

Choosing the fabric is what takes the most time for me. Cutting the squares took no time at all once I knew where this project was going.

I made one change to the assembly process from the original tutorial. The original mini quilt has twenty blocks. Each place mat has twelve blocks, but there are six place mats, which means there are 72 total blocks for this project. That was going to be a whole lot of tiny squares and rectangles to piece.

For the shadow fabric, I cut a 2 1/2 inch strip and a 3 inch strip. From the background, I cut two 1 inch strips. A background strip is stitched to the shadow strip, then 1 1/2 inch segments are cut to go on the two sides of each focus square. It went much faster this way.

It was fun to watch the design wall evolve with finished tops. And I am not great at secret projects so it was quite the challenge not to share all the progress as it was happening. The border on the right side is wider than the others, to add a little interest and make a special place to put your fork.

Each one is quilted differently. The red mini was done exactly as the quilting on the tutorial.

Orange was quilted with free motion circles in the shadow and a trio of straight lines on each sashing strip. The center line of each trio is in a darker thread to match the shadow. This was one of those happy accidents. I forgot to change the thread color after quilting the circles and just decided to go with it rather than having to pull out the trusty seam ripper.

Yellow is quilted with free motion circles in the sashing, and long lines of quilting in the shadow. My goal for quilting when it isn't an all over design is to quilt the shadow heavily and the background a little less so that the focus blocks, which have no quilting, pop up off the quilt, emphasizing the dimension and shadow.

Green. This one is my favorite. This is the first one where I ignored the blocks and went with an all over design. I love the big spiral in a variegated thread.

The quilting on the blue mini was done using a free motion loopy stitch in the sashing. It is hard to see the stitching on this one but it is not hard to see those lumps near the blocks. The pressed seam allowance kept bumping up against my free motion foot instead of going under it. I have not had that happen before. It was a little frustrating, but I persevered. The shadow is stitched with a decorative stitch on my Janome. That part was fun and reminded me that I need to experiment with some of those decorative stitches more often.

For the violet mini, I went with a wavy cross hatch. I didn't want the green mini to be the only one with an all over design, and, by this last one, I was ready to be finished, so I confess that the easy quilting on this one was intentional.

Here they are from the back, doing their best to pay respect for all the ROY G BIV going on on the front. They had to be cute enough to turn over, just in case there are any spills on the front. Each place mat finishes at 13 inches by 17 inches.

Don't they look fantastic on the kitchen table?! Thanks so much Janice and Jen for organizing this quilt along and encouraging me to revisit the Shadow Block Mini Quilt tutorial. I cannot wait to see what everyone else has made.

Shadow Block Mini Quilt Quilt Along

Just two short days ago I received a note from Janice at Color, Creating, and Quilting sharing with me that she and her good friend Jen at A Dream and A Stitch wanted to do a quilt along using my Shadow Block Mini Quilt tutorial. How exciting is that?!

And they did not hesitate to get started. They have even set up a hashtag to share the finished mini quilts on Instagram (#shadowminiquilt). The big reveal day is August 29 so make a mini and join the fun. Janice and Jen have all the details over on their blogs so go check it out.

I am definitely joining in on the fun. It's time to make another Shadow Box Mini Quilt!

Thank you Janice and Jen for the quilt along. I can't wait to see what you create!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - A Mini Quilt

It is that exciting time of year when the Blogger's Quilt Festival occurs. This will be my first year entering. It will be fun to be a part of the festivities. I decided to enter my Shadow Block Mini Quilt in the Mini category. It is just small enough to qualify since the maximum perimeter is 80 inches. This quilt is 17 1/2 inches by 20 inches, so it is 75 inches around.

I've written about this quilt twice before, here when I first finished it, and here when I wrote a tutorial for it. There are lots more pictures in those posts.

Thank you to Amy over at Amy's Creative Side for hosting.

How To Make A Shadow Block Mini Quilt

 
Earlier this week I shared my latest quilt finish, a Shadow Block Mini Quilt. Today, you can make one, too. One very important thing to keep in mind with this project is that the smaller the project, the more important it is to be accurate. Be extra careful with your cutting and check to make sure your seam allowance is an accurate 1/4". If you do those two things, your project will come together perfectly.

Fabric requirements:

• Focus fabric - Twenty 3" squares
  A charm pack (an assortment of 5" squares from a single fabric collection) is a good way to bring variety to the squares, or, if you have been quilting for a while, you can probably find a nice assortment in your fabric stash. If you wanted to cut the focus squares out of the same fabric, you need a quarter yard or fat quarter.
• Shadow fabric - 1/4 yard or fat quarter
  This fabric should be a solid, medium value neutral. The finished quilt shown uses a tan, but a gray, or even khaki green would work for this. As long as there is contrast with the background, it should provide the right effect.
• Background fabric - 3/8 yard light solid fabric
• Backing fabric - 5/8 yard
• Binding fabric - 1/4 yard

Cutting for the quilt top:

• Focus squares
• Cut twenty 3" squares
• Shadow
• Cut twenty 1" x 2 1/2" rectangles. 
• Cut twenty 1" x 3" rectangles.
• Background
• Cut forty 1" squares. 
• Cut twenty 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" rectangles. 
• Cut five 19 1/2" x 1 1/2" strips.
  These strips form the sashing between each row of blocks. You may want to wait until your rows are sewn together before cutting these strips. That way if your seam allowance is off a little, you can cut these strips to the length of your rows.
• Cut two 17 1/2" x 1 1/2" strips.
  These two strips will go on either side of the quilt top once everything is sewn together. Again, it might be a good idea to wait and check the width of your quilt for greater cutting accuracy.
  

 

 Make the blocks:

Each block needs one 3" square of focus fabric, two 1" squares of background fabric, one 1" x 2 1/2" rectangle of shadow fabric, and one 1" x 3" rectangle of shadow fabric.

First, stitch the background squares to the shadow fabric. Press the seam toward the shadow fabric.

Next, stitch the shorter shadow fabric and background strip to the side of the focus block. Press toward the focus block.

Then stitch the remaining shadow and background strip to the top of the block. Press toward the focus block. Your finished block should measure 3 1/2" square. Check each block and trim it to size if needed. Or, adjust your seam allowance if the resulting block is too small.

Once you have made a couple of test blocks and are pleased with the result, you might want to try chain piecing some of the parts to make it go together faster. Chain piecing is when you have lots of similar piecing to do so rather than starting and stopping for each one, you stitch one right after another without cutting threads.

It can also help with pressing. I chain pieced all the squares to the shadow rectangles. The connecting parts helped my pieces stay flat and secure on the pressing surface. It's hard to wrangle a tiny one-inch square for pressing. Once I had them all pressed, I cut the units apart and continued to the next step.

Arrange Blocks and Add Sashing:

Once you have twenty blocks made, lay them out in four rows of five blocks, switching them around until you are happy with the arrangement.

I tried to do the arranging at the beginning but discovered it was too hard to keep them in order while the blocks were being assembled. You can see where I had already made two blocks to check my accuracy before playing around with the layout. I ended up arranging them again after all the blocks were made.

When you arrange your blocks, make sure the shadows are all facing the same direction. The next step is to add sashing between the blocks. Each row of five blocks will need four 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" background rectangles sewn between. Press the seams toward the sashing strip. If your seam allowance has been accurate throughout the project, each row will measure 19 1/2" long. It is okay if it doesn't. Just make sure to adjust the length of the long sashing strips as needed.

Now stitch long sashing strips (the 1 1/2" x 19 1/2" background strips) between each row, then to the top and bottom of the quilt top.

The last step is to add the remaining two background strips (1 1/2" x 17 1/2") to each side of the quilt top. Your top is finished!

Cut your backing fabric a few inches bigger than the quilt top. Layer the top, some batting, and the backing fabric and get ready to quilt. There are a million ways this top could be quilted, but I really wanted to emphasize the shadow on mine. It is heavily quilted with free motion straight(ish) lines sewn on each one. The only other quilting is straight lines along the edges of each block, both horizontally and vertically.

There is no quilting on the focus blocks so they will stand up just a little more than the rest of the quilt top. Once the quilting is completed, trim and square up the edges and add some binding. I am finally getting the hang of machine binding so that is how the sample quilt is finished.

This quilt is fast and fun to make.

If you make this quilt, I would love to see how yours turns out.

Please leave a comment or drop me an email if you have any questions.