"One of Those Days' Mini Quilt

Hi, I'm Heather from Quilts Actually, and I'm excited to be a part of Fort Worth Fabric Studio's Mini Mania!

Warning: My mini is not a quick and fun mini.  It is an exercise in precision cutting and piecing.  If you enjoy that type of piecing, it is fun, but you need to have a consistent scant 1/4" seam allowance for this to turn out.  However, if you are up for the challenge, I think it is quite a striking design!

This is called the "One of Those Days" mini, because I had a lot of those days while making this small quilt!  I love the finished project, but it just seemed like everything was working against me finishing successfully, and this is not a project that has a lot of room for error.

If you follow me on Instagram (@QACreations), you will have seen some of those days I had... and don't look too closely at the finished product or you'll see one of those days I missed!

Click READ MORE below to continue



Fabric:

3" Daysail Tiny Script in Red
8" Daysail Meadow in Navy
8" Daysail Hatch in Red
14" Miss Kate Printed Solid Gray
8" Daysail Stripe in Red for binding
1/2 yard Daysail Buoy in Red for back

Cutting:

Red Fabric: Daysail Hatch

• (48) 1.5" squares [A] 
• (48) 1" squares [B]

Grey Background: Miss Kate Printed Solid Grey

• (48) 1.5" squares [C]
• (96) 1" squares [D]
• (48) 1.5" x 2" rectangles [E]
• 2" borders

Blue Fabric: Daysail Navy Meadow

• (144) 1" squares [F]

Red Centers: Daysail Tiny Script in Red

• (12) 1" squares [G]

Directions:

Always sew using a scant ¼” seam.  Always press toward the darker fabric (assuming lighter colored background fabric), or as shown by the arrows.

If you want to have interlocking seams throughout the entire quilt, and not just the quilt blocks, press half of the blocks as shown by the arrows and the other half the opposite of what is shown.  When you arrange the blocks, arrange them so that the blocks that are ironed opposite each other are next to each other.

Step 1: For each block make (4) corner units, (4) semi-snowball units, and (1) center unit.

Corner Unit:
Mark wrong side of fabric with a line from corner to corner.  Place A and C right sides together, pin, and sew ¼” away on both sides from the line you drew.  Cut on the drawn line.  Press open.  Trim each half square triangle (HST) to 1” square.

Sew one HST unit to a red 1” square [B], and the other HST unit to a grey 1” square [D].

Semi-Snowball Unit: 

Draw a line from one corner to the opposite corner on 8 of the 1” squares [F].  Begin with one 1 ½” by 2” rectangle [E].  Place one of the F squares in the top corner of the E rectangle with right sides together.  Sew along the drawn line.  Cut ¼” from the seam of the F square.  

Press open.  Cut ¼” from the seam of the background fabric (or if background fabric is lighter colored than the F square, leave in place).  This is a more stable way that is less likely to lead to stretching along the bias of the sewn seam.  

Center Unit: 

For this center 9-patch unit, you will need one red square [G], 4 grey squares [D] and 4 blue squares [F].  Assemble as shown below, and press seams as suggested by the arrows so that they are interlocking.  

Step 2: Assemble individual blocks.  

Step 3: Assemble blocks into quilt top.  

Once the blocks are assembled, measure the center of the quilt vertically and horizontally.  Use those lengths to cut your borders.  This will help the quilt to stay as square and flat as possible.  If you just cut lengths of the border fabric and sew it on, you are more likely to get wavy borders.  

Step 4: Quilt as desired.  

I quilted wreaths in the background squares.  I did an orange peel design in the blue blocks, and in the red blocks I did a continuous curve design that doesn't really show up on the red.  For the border, I continued the wreaths into the border, and framed the piece with straight line quilting.  

Step 5: Bind using 2” binding strips, or the width you prefer.  I like to do 2" double binding on mini quilts with a slightly smaller front binding because the width of the binding is more proportional to the quilt size.  Single binding is also good for mini quilts.  

Finished Size: 14 1/4" x 17 3/4"

BONUS: I have a mini tutorial on how I hang my mini quilts on my blog - QA Creations.

If you make this mini, please share a photo with Lindsey at lindsey@fortworthfabricstudio.com or on Instagram using the hashtag #sewingwithfwfabricstudio.