Very Cool!

Very cool indeed! When I saw this in my Quilting with A Quilter's Table group on flickr last night, my mouth dropped open! I guess I was shocked at the discovery of something in my group besides my original mini 'x'! Isn't it the cutest?!

1. Mini 'X' Quilt

It was made by P. of The Way I Sew It, and I'm as pleased as can be that she made such a beauty using my tutorial! {see here}

And thanks, Susan, for bringing to my attention that there is a big bloggy giveaway event beginning December 12, sponsored by Sew, Mama, Sew!  There are six different categories, with both handmade items and supplies, and it sounds pretty cool. See all the details here.

Lastly, I noticed a new swap starting on flickr, if anyone is interested, swapping Japanese x and + blocks, such as this one I made:

Anyway, just fyi - the group is here. 

Enough coolness for one post, eh?

Mini 'X' Quilt Top Tutorial

Here is my completed mini 'x' quilt, first posted here.

Considering I had difficulty finding a pattern for my mini 'x' quilt, I thought I'd share my process.

Supplies needed:
          block fabric - 12 charm squares (each 5" square)
          contrasting backing fabric - 1/4 yard
          border fabric - 1/8 yard

1. Place your charm squares in two stacks, each with six squares, and cut two 5 X 2" strips from each stack. Put one set of each stack aside for now.

2. Cut two strips of background fabric 2" wide by WOF.

3. String-piece ONE strip from each charm onto the background strips. (This is hard to see in this photo with the color of my charms and background. I had just finished stitching the blue piece onto the white background strip, and was beginning the gray.) 

4. Cut apart and press. Then cut two 2 X 3 1/2" pieces from each pieced strip. Discard the two little pieces to the left.

5. Lay out your pieces, including the charm strips you set aside in step 1, allowing for the gaps that need to be filled in.

6. Now, cut 27 2" squares of your background fabric and fill in the 'holes', plus add a background square to the end of each row that ends in a print. Note: not shown in the picture below - a square also needs to be added at each end (upper right and lower left corners). The photo in step 7 shows these squares added.

7. Now - stitch it all together, first in diagonal rows, then matching rows together as you stitch. As you stitch the rows together, it'll help if you press each seam before you add more rows.

8. Trim your pointey edges on all four sides, and add a border. For mine, I cut two strips 1 3/4" wide by WOF.

There! Now you have a 16 X 20" mini quilt top ready to be quilted and bound!

If you do make a quilt using this tutorial, I'd love to have you post a picture in my flickr group, Quilting with A Quilter's Table! 


Linking up to Crafti-licious!