Friday, November 5, 2021

Making Dear Prudence, A Little Quilt

Wendy the Constant Quilter hosts a monthly miniature quilt link-up at the end of every month.  Such beautiful quilts the ladies make!  I love the mini quilts and have made a few but always wonder what to do with them. Then, early in October, Rogue Quilter Janet (who is one of the queens of miniature quilts) extended a challenge in conjunction with Wendy's mini link-up:  use a bag of leftover scraps and make a miniature quilt from them.  She offered a few of her bags to readers who were already participating in the monthly mini link-up.  I admired several of her color combinations in the bags but said I just didn't see myself making miniature quilts (because, of course, what would I do with them?).  Janet may read this post and chuckle.

And then, when I saw Pam Buda's new sew-along for a miniature quilt she calls Dear Prudence I caved.   (Thank you for the sew-along, Pam.)  Her inspiration quilt had 18 tiny birds in the air blocks.  I fell in love with the colors of the birds on that little quilt.  I have a small collection of fabrics in the gold-to-copper-to-bronze-to-green-to-brown color range.  Pam use pinks and blues from her fabric line for her beautiful quilt.  My version uses the original colors as much as I was able to see and copy them.  Except I didn't have enough of any double pink.  I also didn't have the pattern.  My only clue to size was that the tiny birds, unfinished, were 1½" square.

My quilt top is together except for the two borders.  I still need to trim around the edges because I wasn't sure how big to make the side-setting and corner triangles.  Oversize is better, I thought.
birds in the air miniature quilt
I'll try to find fabric for the narrow inner border that has the coppery/green tones from the fabric in the blocks, perhaps a plaid.  I've already chosen the fabric for the outer border.  You can see it on the right in the photo below.
I think the pink is an unusual choice to go with the rest of the fabrics but because I was copying an old quilt I went with it. 

I forgot how dense little quilts can become.  The seams in the tiny half-square-triangle blocks almost cover the triangles on the back. 

Finishing this top (trimming edges and adding two borders), plus choosing backing, deciding whether to use batting/flannel between, and basting are my One Monthly Goal this month. 

I'm linking this post to
> November One Monthly Goal Linkup at Elm Street Quilts.
> Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
> Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
> Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More
> Off the Wall Friday at Nina's blog
Thanks for hosting, ladies!

--Nancy.

17 comments:

  1. Sensational! You have made a delightful little quilt - and so much detail and intricate piecing. It's just adorable.

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    1. Thank you, Robin. Now that it's almost finished I'm thinking it could have been smaller. Ha!

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  2. Nancy, You have done an incredible job of recreating that adorable quilt. I had to laugh, but not for the reason you may have thought. You didn't have the pattern for this and yet have done so well. I DO have the pattern and made some major cutting errors. So, though I had cut out the entire quilt (or so I thought), the frustration of having to recut almost everything made me lose my enthusiasm for the project and after 6 blocks I couldn't bring myself to do more. I chose my 5 favorites of the six blocks and made a very small version of this--hardly looks like the same quilt, which is partly because I made a different colorway.
    Kudos to you!

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    1. Thank you, Janet. I'm surprised that you mis-cut but I'm sure your quilt will be adorable. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

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  3. Simply beautiful! Kudos for making these teeny tiny blocks!

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    1. Thank you, Pat. Now that it's almost finished I'm actually wondering if the blocks should have/could have been smaller! Each block finishes at 3" and it's only the small blocks that are 1½".

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  4. Beautiful! Your usual knack for finding fabrics excels here. It's darling. Tiny quilts are such a fun uplifting change from the long slog of making a bed quilt.

    lizzzy

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    1. Thank you, Lizzy. I have some thoughts about the fabrics I used--now that the blocks are all sewn together. Little quilts can be fun unless they're really detailed and really small, and then they are just a frustration to me. But this one was, as you say, an uplifting change.

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  5. So cute! Good luck with your goal.

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    1. Thank you, Helen Anne. I'm now hoping I might be able to begin quilting it, too, this month. We'll see.

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  6. It's beautiful! The double pink was used a lot during a certain period of the Civil War era to about 1880, and it makes a great contrast. Pinks and browns were often used together then and I love the combination.

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    1. Thank you, Susan. I really like pinks and browns together, and I love the double pinks (for some quilts) but they're really hard to find locally which.

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  7. Wow! I tried my hand at these once several years ago -- well, mini blocks, really. It was a class through what was then Quilt University, called "Jane Was Nuts!" (referring to Jane Stickle (https://benningtonmuseum.org/portfolio-items/1863-jane-stickle-quilt-2/). I made 9 wee blocks and put them together as a table topper -- I still have it and use it! Maybe it's time to give minis another 'go'...

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    1. I think the Dear Jane blocks are incredibly challenging (just by looking at them, because I haven't tried to make any). Kudos to you, Margaret, for making 9 of them! Your table topper is probably delightful!

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  8. I see you didn't make the mistake I always do, which is I press the seams to the side, and you pressed them open. I recently hand quilted a little quilt with flannel as batting, made it hard to quilt. I just need to dig out the sewing machine and get the binding on.

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    1. I press seams open except for a few circumstances, such as the points on geese, which have several layers of fabric overlapping and really don't want to fold over.
      I used flannel instead of batting in the last small quilt I made. I think the kind of flannel must make a difference. Mine was not difficult to quilt (but it's very bendable/foldable. Of course, I didn't want it stiff.
      It will be great to get the binding on your little quilt!

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