The Evolution of February's mini quilt

Warning, short month - long story.

It’s ironic that February is the shortest month because I spent more time on this little quilt than any other mini quilt I have made!

While on a really fun trip with 4 of my seven quilting sisters I found this “frog” green fabric at Quintessentials in Auburn, Maine. 

Kathy said it really looked like me and since she is always right, I bought a yard. We were planning a bus trip to the shop again in 2 weeks and I decided to use this in my February mini so I could show the girls (and Betsy, the shop owner) what I did with it. 

I thought I would cheat a bit by using some hexie blocks that were already pieced. I have over 100 just sitting around waiting to be used so, why not? 

I love strippy quilts making the idea for the design and easy one. However, by not using one of those measuring things (you know – a ruler!), I mentally calculated the width of my strips and figured 4 hexies in each strip would suffice.

Yes, it probably would have had I actually measured it! So, by now you are getting the picture. Luckily I had cut the background large enough to add an extra hexagon on each strip. 

I had picked out this fabulous fabric from the Mechant’s Wife line by Terry Clothier Thompson. It was a wonderful line of fabrics based on a c1840 antique quilt top she found in Maine.

Realizing that now would be a good time to pick up a ruler, I carefully cut each strip making sure that some of the green was still evident. 

I hand appliqued the hexies to the background and pieced the strips together. I split a piece of Dream Wool in half and used a fabulous pillar print from Di Ford on the back. I have to say that Di Ford’s fabrics are to die for (no pun intended!). 

I even had enough of it to match the triangle corners for hanging.

 After I hand quilted the hexie strips I decided that the proportion was just not right. It really needed to be wider.

So… out comes the ruler again and I made 40 little 1” finished half square triangle to add to either side.

It was lucky (since it surely wasn’t planned) that the backing piece was large enough to accommodate the added width.

Because I wanted to finish this before the bus trip I decided to machine quilt the alternate strip and the half squares triangles.

While auditioning fabrics for the binding, I felt that the white outline on the Merchant’s Wife fabric was a bit too stark. I thought about dying the entire thing, a  risky maneuver! I experimented with coffee and with Rit beige dye. 

But, since the entire project began with this delicious bright green, I really didn’t want to dampen it. I thought about filling in the white edges with a gold-ish Pigma pen. Ah, nope, I’m calling it good enough!

I am happy to say that Kyle (Timeless Reflections), Barbara (Quilts Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)  and Janet (Rogue Quilter) have joined in the fun. Visit Kyle’s post (here) and Barbara’s post (here).  And, see Janet's post (here) for her January quilt and a wonderful tutorial on mini quilts! I am really looking forward to round two!

I will work on figuring out how to link up by the end of next month so if any of you want to join us you can jump right in!

Have a great day!