Monthly Archives: February 2012

Hi!

Welcome to Day 11 of the Modern Mini Challenge blog hop!

I am really excited about this challenge and look forward to seeing how you push yourself to try something new.   Hopefully I can provide a little inspiration for you today.

Spiderweb Mini :: 20″ x 20″ square

When Jennifer asked me to join in, I immediately started thinking of what I could do to challenge myself.

I love that mini quilts give you a smaller scale to try a new technique, but also leave you with an amazing little work of art.

I started by brainstorming ways a quilter could challenge themselves:

• Paper piecing
• A traditional block design if you’re always doing modern and vice versa
• Applique
• A new and bolder color combination
• Stepping away from set fabric collections and pulling favorite pieces to create your own collection
• Using only solids
• Improv piecing
• Curves
• A new way to quilt whether that be handquilting, freemotion, or straight lines
• Creating your own original design
• Precision piecing

There really are endless possibilities!    For me, I already had a mini in progress and I was trying to decide how to finish it.

I knew the perfect challenge would be to try a new quilting technique.

I have the hardest time with straight line quilting.   Probably because I’m impatient!

I’m not going to get better if I don’t practice, so the spider webs were straight line quilted.

I also have a tendency to just meander all of my quilts because I’m comfortable with that… hello, challenge calling.  I love pebble quilting, so why not give that a go?

The white areas were pebble quilted and while neither are perfect, I am proud of myself for trying something new and every time I look at this quilt I’m reminded that it feels really good to push myself.

That’s my newest mini, but I thought I’d also share the others that I’ve made in the past.

(P.S. Did you catch my off white star point!?  Aw, the fun of quilting.   Realizing after your done that you had a scrap of Kona Snow mixed in with your White!   LOL)

This is a little mini of my sewing machine, Pearl.   This quilt is completely appliqued.

This is the tiniest quilt I’ve ever made, postcard size.    I paper pieced the background and then appliqued the flower on top.

Potholders are minis too!

A bit of a picture overload, but hopefully you can find some inspiration amongst it all.

Please don’t miss out on this fun challenge!

I feel like so many of us wait until we are ‘good’ at  a technique before putting it into something we love.    Don’t do that, I think you should use something you love to try your new techniques!    Who is inspired by their ‘mess up’ fabric?   Not me.

Get out the colors that make you happy and the fabric that really gets your creativity going.  That’s what you need to use!    I find you do even better at a new technique when you’re continually inspired in the process.

xo, Lindsey

P.S.   The inspiration is still flowing, be sure to visit the rest of the bloggers on the hop!