A Plethora of Mini-Quilts

My son Brett celebrated #38 yesterday.  Many years ago, when my three children were much younger - 12th grade, 9th grade and Kindergarten - we were traveling to a Winter Guard competition in Salem, MA. The older two each had a friend with them and for some reason my son (the 9th grader) and his friend Tim brought up the word "plethora" (I guess it was part of the vocabulary lesson for the week) and between the four of them, it became their goal to use the word in a sentence as often as they could.  They are all grown up now (41, 38, and 29), but that word has stuck with me and when I hear it, memories of that weekend road trip come flooding back.This post is dedicated to Brett, Tim, Megan and Sang. Thank you for making "plethora" one of my favorite words too!

A plethora of mini-quilts - yes indeed.  I seem to have been bitten by the mini-quilt bug and over the past month or so, I've been piecing mini-quilts.  Paula designed Heritage Stars for Spring Market - a fat quarter friendly quilt using her Heritage Reds collection - and we liked it so much that we decided to re-do it in fabrics from Paula's Peppery collection.  Both collections are from Marcus Fabrics and are available at your LQS. I am hard pressed to decide which one I like better! We are currently working on making up kits for both of these quilts and as soon as the patterns and kits are ready we will add them to our website! I will post here when they are available!

I love everything from Jeanne Horton and the Shop Girls from Country Sampler (Spring Green, WS), so of course I joined her Nickel and Dime Club earlier this year.  Our first project was this adorable heart quilt - Love, Love, Love.  I've now made two - one as a gift and one for me.  Can't wait for Valentine's Day to roll around again so I put this one on my table.

If you receive Jeanne's weekly newsletter, you know that she always has some adorable mini-quilt that one of the girls has pieced.  I fell in love with Kathleen's Doll Quilt (featuring fabrics from Betsy Chutchian's first collection Eliza's Indigos) and Valentine Star designed by Selma Bennett.  With Memorial Day and July 4th coming, I decided my table needed a new patriotic table runner, so I pieced Hometown USA designed by Suzanne Unbehaun.

Hometown US (left), Kathleen's Doll Quilt (top right), Valentine Star (bottom right)

I also seem to have been bitten by the Frivols bug!  It's amazing what happens at retreats - someone brings out their Frivols tin and the next thing you know we're all online and checking to see who has which Frivol and who wants which one - a shopping frenzy has begun.  I now have 7 of these little tins, but did manage to finish No. 5, Atelier, featuring Petite Prints Deux from French General.

My dear friend Pat has joined me as we venture down the mini-quilt rabbit hole and graciously quilts all these little beauties for me! I think it's time to do another quilt redecorating, maybe table tops this time or fill up that big galvanized bucket I bought!

Paula and I have been busy planning, designing and piecing.  She has a number of new collections in the works, so I'll be piecing some beautiful new quilts for Fall Market and Festival.  We're also working on quilts for book #2. Watch for posts with updates as the summer rolls along.

Until next time, happy quilting,
Mary Ellen