Well hockey season is over (sigh), the stomach flu that plagued our family last week has passed (thank God), the 5 inches of snow that surprised us on Saturday morning has melted, and with 60 degree temperatures forecasted this week, spring is definitely in the air.
So I decided to celebrate by making another miniature quilt for my mother's quilt frame (see my posts 'Tis Better to Give: Part 2 and Sew Sweet).
This is the palette I chose:
I was inspired by the St. Patrick's Day decorations I'm seeing everywhere and, of course, spring.
I wanted to make a tree of life block (on point) for the frame, but for the quilt to fit in the 6 1/2" wide opening, I knew the pieces of the block would have to be tiny.
I've made a couple of miniature quilts in the past. This is my favorite:
This quilt is 5 1/4" x 8" with a lot of small pieces, but I used paper-piecing for the flying geese. It was time-consuming, but not difficult. Unfortunately the tree of life block doesn't exactly lend itself to paper-piecing, so I knew I would have to machine piece all 59 pieces the hard way and that it might be a bit, shall we say, challenging. But the idea was firmly entrenched in my mind and, as my mother would attest, sometimes I'm a glutton for punishment. I decided to try anyway.
This is the end result:
I love this little quilt! It's only 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" and the finished size of the half-square triangles is only 1/2" -- about the size of my thumbnail. Challenging, yes, but fun and well worth the effort. Now I have a little bit of spring in the house to help me usher in a new season.
Think spring!