A Challenge Begins

Well, I had just been thinking that one of my intentions for the new year might be to make up some more miniature quilts when I came across this challenge from Persimon Dreams.  A square in a square quilt?  Oh, yeah.  There’s a good reason to pull out Miniatures in Minutes. 

So, first, I opened up EQ and designed a mini using the Courthouse Steps foundation.  Just for fun, here’s a view of my first tinkerings:

And I like that.  But what I love about playing in EQ is how I never know where I’m going to end up.  It more often than not doesn’t look anything at all like where I began.  Case in point, here’s the quilt design I ended up with:

I really liked the soft colors on the second version.  Plus I really liked the more modern vibe of the scattered colors.  So, here’s the very start: first patches on the foundation.

For those who know my technique, you know that I typically mark on the foundation what patches go where.  Given how the coloring on this is so random, I decided it would be easier to just lay them out round by round.  So this is a picture of the final round of “logs” in the order they’ll be added to the foundation.

Here’s where I’m currently at (I had to stop to go accomplish other things – it’s so annoying how life can interfere with quilting!).  To help keep myself on track, I crossed out each round as I finished it.

I am loving how this is coming out.  Exactly as I imagined it!

And, for the record, that’s not the only mini quilting I’ve been up to.  I have another new year mini in process as well.  A good friend that I met through my Miniatures in Minutes classes came up with the idea for a mini bargello.  She figured out all the dimensions.  I drew the foundation.  What a great, great design! 

I’ll show her (totally wow) versions at a later date, but here’s mine in process.  She’s got a winter and a fall themed bargello, so we decided my task was to do summer.  What a great excuse to pull out some of my beloved Ricky Tims hand-dyes!

Here it is, in process: all the patches added but the rows still needing to be sewn together.

I’m in love with that, too.  I’m hoping that with both of these I can free motion something cool in the borders.  We’ll see . . . I’ve only got through Sunday to finish up the square in a square if I’m going to meet the challenge deadline.  (Well, it certainly helps that school is still out!)