HAND PIECED HST MINI QUILT

The end of the year is always about cramming in as much sewing time as possible for me. Unfortunately, I ‘holiday sew’ the same way that I ‘holiday shop’. Make one or two for me, make one for you. I find that this keeps me motivated and excited about the projects I’m working on. Even though I’m way behind on my sewing this year (not unusual), I’ve been working hard on finishing up quilting projects that got started this year (& before). Right now I’m on the binding stage of my Sampler 2 quilt, a plaid quilt and I’ll start quilting my Field Study quilt this weekend. Plus! My Cog & Wheel is with Lindsay for long arm quilting. I have a little dream of ending the year with a pretty clean quilting slate so that I can start up the Farmer’s Wife Sampler in January.

This little mini quilt wasn’t on my list to complete, but I found it the other day and decided to add it to the list. This mini quilt is completely hand pieced. All those little half square triangles (HSTs) are 1″ finished and the entire mini quilt is 12″ square. It’s tiny!

The reason that I hadn’t finished it off when I made it was that I had no idea how to quilt it. I thought it would be impossible to hand quilt through all those tiny seams and I worried that machine quilting would take away from the handwork. I decided to try machine stitching in the ditch. After one line, I stopped and ripped out the stitches. Finally I realized that I could tie it! I have never tied a quilt before, but it was really the perfect solution. You can’t tell at all from the front and from the back the ties look pretty cute. The only machine stitching on this quilt was when I stitched my binding onto the front of the quilt.

This mini is definitely on my list of favourite things that I’ve ever made. Anything that I’ve hand stitched seems to be on that list. (This, this & this!) Hand work just has something about it.

MISC.

• I made this lasagna soup recipe last week, found on Pinterest. it’s pretty awesome and I highly recommend it
• City of Craft is THIS WEEKEND. This is by far my favourite holiday shopping event of the year. Any gifts that I’m not making will be purchased at the show. Maybe I’ll see you there!
• We have Lizzy House holiday cards at the workroom. One of the cards has a Yeti on it. I am in love with it.
• I’m in a new book called Zakka Style by Rashida Coleman Hale – with 23 other awesome designers that is coming out very soon. You can win a copy of the book over at the Stash Books blog right now. I REALLY want my copy so I can start making those cute projects.
• BlogTO is doing their annual poll for the ‘Best of Toronto’. Voting ends tonight for your favourite local French baguette, Chinese restaurant, Calzone, Hot Pot and FABRIC STORE.
• The first part of our January class calendar just got posted. You guys get first dibs. Everyone else will know tomorrow. Can’t wait for this new class.