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Marvelous Mini Challenge

This months challenge from Island Batik is the Marvelous Minis.

Fun fact about me, when I first started out on instagram, I joined all the mini quilt swaps. Do you remember all the quilt swaps that use to happen on instagram? Did you ever join them? I started out just doing mostly applique or traditional piecing; however, once I learned about foundation paper piecing my mini quilts turned into a new opportunity to design a pattern and see how much detail I could add to them. Well, this month I got to do just that. I pulled out the Morris Mist collection by Kathy Engle and got to work designing three spooky minis to hang on my walls this year.

I love the darker tones of the purples and blues but I did want a pop of orange to add in to the collection to help create my designs. I grabbed some of the off cuts I had on hand and a few of my browns as well. This helped with a few of the designs. I love that all the Island Batik fabrics blend so well together.


















While coming up with designs I wanted to go with a spooky vibe, a Halloween aesthetic and a little vintage gothic, if you will. I love the old gold picture frames of bugs, and the nerdy classic animals, but also we need a welcome sign too right? With all those ideas in mind I got to work designing three photo frame style patterns.






The first design was a mini moth:


Now with the original idea, I wanted to use orange but when I started looking at the Morris Mist collection I knew it would be better in the purples. I could even see these done in the whites from the collection as well.













The next one was a Kitty. I wanted to do one of those nerdy book reading, potion making kind of kitties. So I designed this one with the idea of the blacks and oranges, but giving him the pop of purples from the Morris Mist collection. This really ties the three designs together.












The last design of course was the welcome sign. I went with Welcome Witches, add the little bat and a small pumpkin as well as a broom so those who come to the house know their brooms will be well kept.







If you haven't figured it out yet, you probably could guess, but Halloween and spooky fall vibes is absolutely my style, and my favorite holiday as well. I really enjoyed designing these patterns, so sewing them up only took me a few days, because when you are excited about a project it makes it easy to sew.


With the moth mini, I added the orange boarders in layers at different sizes, to help give that old vintage gold frame feeling. I then designed just by drawing out a small scroll, mirrored it and placed it in the corners. I then traced that onto the fabric, used some heat-n-bond and ironed those onto each corner. I then top stitched those down.

Once I had all the blocks sewn up, I gave all of them a little spray with starch, and a nice hot press. I used my Oliso iron to do this and it helps so much, because it gets those foundation paper piecing blocks nice and flat. If I want to quilt these blocks, I need them flat. Thank you Oliso for this amazing iron.

I decided I wanted to use the Hobbs Bleached 80/20 cotton as I was using the white batik as my background and didn't want the batting to dull the white out. This bleached batting is great when you are using really bright white batiks. I love using it with the white batik because then it never shows through but instead almost blends into the batik and the 80/20 is my go to for almost all projects. Thank you Hobbs for the amazing batting.

I did use the batik white on the back, as well because, again I did not want anything showing through to the front.


I do love to free motion quilt and so I spent the next two days free motion quilting these pieces, using my Aurifil 50wt thread. I absolutely love how the lime green thread looks on top of my Welcome Witches sign. What do you think? Do you love it or hate it, let me know if the comments.


I probably need to do some work on the spider, but lets just not look too close okay.


While stitching the kitty, I really wanted the background to look and feel like wallpaper, so I decided to free motion quilt with the white Aurifil and do a checker board on a 45 degree angle. I then free motion quilted to floor as if they were wood planks. I look at it now and wish I would have used different colors for the floor and wall, but live and learn.

The last block, the moth was probably the hardest one for me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to quilt the inside or the frame or any of it really. I did end up using a gold thread for the frame and the white for the areas around it, but I should have quilted in some pins to "hold" the moth in the frame. Ill probably add some later on.


I matched the binding as close as I could to the pieces, and hand sewed those on. Did I ever mention how much I love hand sewing the batik binding fabric, because its like butter to sew through. I never have any issues and its smooth but sturdy.


Once the bindings were on, I grabbed a few of my Halloween decorations and got a few photos on a slightly over cast day to really bring the gloom together.


Lets take a look:









and I even caught a little video as well...




I hope you loved my three marvelous mini quilts and I hope you will take a moment to check out all the other island batik ambassadors who also will be, or have already, posted their marvelous minis.


Best, Megan: www.bestquilter.com

Boatright, Pamela: www.Pamelaquilts.com

Deshensky, Susan: www.ladybluequilts.com

Hatziioannidi, Mania: www.maniaforquilts.com

Kresin Campbell, Connie: https://conniekresin.com/

Looney, Denise: https://quiltery.com

McAuliffe, Maryellen: https://www.marymackmademine.com/

Schweri, Julia: inflorescencedesigns.com


Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. Be sure to check out my instagram @QuiltNSew as thats is where I post my most up to date activities and patterns.


Stay Safe and Happy Sewing!

1 Comment

Quilting Tangent
Quilting Tangent
Sep 03

Cute Halloween projects.

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