Hey Everyone, welcome back to Coffee Talk Saturday.
Yesterday, I mentioned in my post that I was delayed getting Colourful Friday out because I was working on a dare. Yes, another dare – why do people keep giving me dares and an even bigger questions is why do I keep taking them up on them. Yoda and I though are still thinking about the Star Wars Cubee quilt dare. I really think that a Cubee quilt would be cool.
Last Sunday my friend Ruth mentioned that she would have a dare for me later in the week. I kind of blindly took her up on it thinking well it can’t be that big of a deal and it wasn’t really. Thursday came around and Ruth put her blog post up about the Ohio Star block and then dared me to make a 1 ½″ block or smaller.
I took Ruth up on the challenge yesterday morning and set about making this teeny, tiny, wee, little block. I figured I would cheat a bit and use the ½″ Thangles to start. Why reinvent the wheel on these tiny half square triangles and quarter square triangles when I had the technology to help me?
Working with the little pieces meant using the little ruler.
Look at all the teeny, tiny, wee little pieces.
Attempt #1
I figured I would try and make one with split-complementary colours – I chose turquoise, 2 – oranges and a pink. Orange and pink is Ruth’s least favourite colour combo but I really like it. The pieces are so tiny that it is kind of hard to tell if the orange is orange or red.
I wasn’t happy with this first block as the star points didn’t work out in the order that they should so I have a bit of a variation on the Ohio Star – I also figured I would be fancy and put a checkerboard in the middle for added insanity.
Attempt #2
My next attempt was with a complementary colour scheme – orange and turquoise. It didn’t turn out too badly.
Final Attempt
Finally I made one last attempt and was most pleased with it. I have to say matching up those seams on those tiny little pieces is a challenge and I was always out on one of them. I suppose with practice I could get better at it and perfect it but the question is – do I want to?
My block turned out to be 1 ½″ finished and 1 ¾″ unfinished. I used an ⅛″ seam allowance to sew my blocks.
My 3 blocks together – suppose I should add another one and make a little coaster for beside my sewing machine. I do have enough quarter square triangle already made to make a 4th block – a rainy day project I think. And besides these tiny blocks sure don’t blast away my stash very quickly.
My hat is off to the miniature quilt makers out there – definitely not for the faint at heart.
Michael figures that Ruth and I should make one miniature block a day in 2014 and put them all together to make a queen size quilt. What do you think? Ruth?
Happy Quilting!
Jen, I think Michael is just kidding. He cannot possibly be serious! Now I get what he meant by “yer going down”. I’m not sure there are 365 9-patch blocks though, so it might not be possible anyway.
Great post – these minis are certainly fun to make but are a challenge for sure.
Oh no Ruth, he is quite serious that we do this little challenge next year. He has it all figured out what mine is going to look like.