Making Mini Quilts

I love to make quilts. I learned to make quilts with my Mom years ago. We would have all-night quilt-a-thons. Me, Mom and my friend Susan would get out our sewing machines on a Friday night and not come up for air until Sunday afternoon. Who needed to sleep or eat when you could spend time cutting up fabric into tiny pieces and then sewing them back together?

This past New Year's weekend I decided to take scissors to fabric and make a few mini-quilts. Mini's are not such a big commitment. Make a few squares, add a border, machine quilt then bind it and voila...a quilt! A small quilt but a quilt nonetheless.

Here are a few snaps of the action.

I took a pile of scraps from Mary's quilt*

Sat at my beloved Featherweight sewing machine.

And whipped up this quilt top.
I sewed the strips together lengthwise into a large rectangle.
Cut it apart crosswise, rearranged and sewed them back together.

I sewed a border around the rectangle and
made a sandwich with backing fabric, cotton batting and the top.

Then quilted the sandwich with wavy freehand lines
from side to side and across.

Made a binding, and stitched it on.

Mary stitched the binding so I could snap a picture. 

Topstitched the binding in place.

And it's finished!

Ready for bears.

Or small dog.

*This is Mary's quilt that provided the scraps for the mini quilt.

 A perfect way to spend the New Year.