Sewing Machine Mini Quilt

I'm definitely not accustomed to little itty bitty pieces, and the mini mania challenge group on Flickr has definitely been good practice for me. When I've made mini quilts in the past, I've made small-ish blocks, but typically just made fewer of them. Of course, that makes it sound as if I've made more than a couple...

The challenge for August was definitely a stretch for me with the little pieces! We all sewed this sewing machine block by Charise Creates. It's paper pieced, and she provides instructions and templates for both traditional paper piecing and freezer paper piecing. I'm a fan of paper piecing, and though I'm not super experienced with it, it's one of my favorite piecing methods.

But. When I saw the pattern, I was thrown off--the templates weren't designed in the same way I was used to seeing, and I wasn't quite sure how to piece them together with the traditional method. So I opted to challenge myself and give freezer paper piecing a go! I was so glad I did--it worked out really well, and now I'm familiar with the basic technique. The tiny pieces were tricky, though, and I had trouble getting the tiny pieces of freezer paper to stay put! I didn't need to unpick anything, save one seam at the very end, so I'd say it was successful! My piecing wasn't super precise, and definitely could have used unpicking, but it was close enough, and my finished block components fit together without a hitch. Yay!


I'm really happy with this little mini and need to get to work hanging my quickly growing collection of minis.