Could.Not.Resist!

Did you see the little doll quilt Lori D. received in her swap? It was made by Karen Dever. You can check it out here.
It called to me like a siren and I found myself powerless to resist. That is pretty sad. So here is my little version--not an exact copy, but "inspired by."

I have no idea the size of the original, but mine finished at 10 1/2". I was working from a little bag of these scraps that a friend had given me, so my pinwheel size was based on what these bits and pieces could do. They also dictated my color scheme.
I see there will be another mini pinwheel quilt in my future.

The patchwork border gave me some grief--with my pieces so small, I would have been cutting something to a 16th of an inch. Not this time, thank you. So I cut and recut to try and see what I liked. That left me with a lot of odd squares and rectangles and that inspired me to make these.

I found a small piece of a pretty stripe that was just enough to create the rows between the patchwork strips. They measure 6 x 9 1/2, and 9 1/2 x 12. Why do I keep adding to my pile of little quilts to be quilted, when I was almost finished with them?

And while we are on that subject, my Primitive Gatherings Pinwheel Garden is now a flimsy, though at 14 1/2" square, and with all of those seams, it isn't extremely flimsy.

It is supposed to be comprised of 12 blocks, but when I had 9 made, it told me it was done. There is also supposed to be another row of the tiny HSTs around the outside, but it told me an emphatic, "NO!" (Or maybe I was the one telling it--my memory is a bit fuzzy on that point.) Since I made my blocks smaller than the pattern (any surprise there?), the outer HSTs would finish at 1/2". I have done that before on another one of Lisa's designs and I foundation pieced those. I didn't want to foundation piece anything on this quilt, although the pattern recommends it, so I stopped. Besides, as small as this is, it is looking very busy.

On this photo you can see a quarter to gauge the size better, and you can see the pattern to know what I am not doing to mine.

It isn't all little quilt finishes around here. Recently I improvised a couple of pillows. The one on the left was from a retreat with Stacy West (of Buttermilk Basin fame) back in January of 2015. It is designed to be a picnic hamper cover, but I don't own one of those.

The snowman pillow is one of the blocks from Lisa Bongean's Warm Winter Blessings quilt. Back in January of 2013 I attended a retreat where Lisa taught us her wool applique methods, using blocks from this quilt. I made three of the quilt blocks before I decided I needed to make the mini version instead.

And just for fun, before I gave away a couple more of the little quilts I have finished this year, I spread them out on the dining room table, stood on a chair, and took this photo. Twenty of the twenty-three I had finished at this point are in this photo. Since this was taken I have gifted a couple more and finished a couple more.

I promised a shorter post this time, so I'd better stop. But I'll leave you with this view after a recent rain.

 Until next time, 
Janet O.