I made this block a few months ago during a class I took with Sally Collins. It measures 2.5″… and it took me about four hours to make it. As you can see, the seams at the bottom of the basket did not quite match, but I was pleased with the overall result as it was my first attempt at miniature blocks.
By the way, this block was not paper pieced. Just think about the tiny pieces of fabric I had to hold and sew together…
Miniature quilts intrigue me. The key to them is PRECISION. Period. In order to achieve precision in your work, you must aspire to outstanding workmanship. As Sally Collins emphasized during this one day class, if you are sewing a seam and the fabrics are not completely aligned (the bottom fabric shows just a hair), and you are satisfied with this arrangement throughout the construction of your blocks, once you are ready to sew them together they will not fit properly, as each one will differ in size, making it virtually impossible to be as exact as you must be. When working with tiny pieces of fabric, you can’t count on the ‘fudge factor’…
Check out Sally Collin’s site. Her work is breathtaking. Her hand quilting is out of this world. One of her books, Mastering Precision Piecing (find it here), is at the top of my wish list, not so much because I believe I could ever be as precise as she is, but because her lecture and class already improved my workmanship tremendously – I can only imagine the improvement I will notice once I read it.
Making miniatures is such fun! Your little red basket is beautiful!
Tá bonito,vai fazer uma Jane?
Denise, I have both Sally Collins book and demo cd if you'd like to borrow them…Tomi Day