Miniatures

I must say I have a fondness in my heart for the miniature category in quilt shows.  I have made several miniature quilts, belong to a miniature quilt group, and I know how much time and fine detail work these tiny creations take.  Just because they are small, does not mean they take less time to make!  In some cases they take more time.  Now, the cost of the materials to make miniatures is a definite advantage :)

At the Houston Festival, Susan Stewart from Kansas, won first place in the Miniature Category for her quilt "Distraction II".  Well, she said she made this quilt two weeks before the entry deadline, so there goes my theory of minis taking just as much time as large quilts!  For me they do!  However, she used digitized machine embroidery and free-motion machine quilting.  I would have done the embroidery by hand.  It is beautiful none-the-less.

Robin Gausebeck from Illinois,  won second place for her quilt "In Flanders Fields".  In her artist statement Robin said, "Honoring veterans of all wars - the survivors and the dead in Flanders fields and elsewhere - this miniature quilt celebrates the poppy of remembrance  The title pays homage to the extraordinarily moving poem by John McCrae (1872-1918), which was written in 1915.  This quilt is machine stitched, fused, raw-edge appliquéd, hand embroidered, hand couched, and machine quilted on a domestic machine.

Kaye Koler from Ohio won third place for "Home At Last".  She says, "Inspired by antique quilts, and using mostly Civil War reproductions, I challenged myself to see how small I could make my favorite block .... much needed down time at the end of the day.

Foundation paper pieced and machine quilted.  I am curious to know how many pieces are in each tiny block, but she doesn't say.

Most of my best miniatures are foundation paper pieced.  I like the freezer paper method.

"Dutch Flower Pots" won an honorable mention award for Lahala Phelps from Washington.  She says, "A favorite quilt of mine is Pots of Flowers pictured in the book "A Flowering of Quilts" by Patricia Cox Crews.  I thought, 'why not try making a miniature Pots of Flowers quilt?'  I designed my own pots of flowers and used cheddar background seen in many Pennsylvania Dutch quilts.  This quilt is hand appliquéd and hand quilted!!  I probably would have picked this one or the next one as first place - just sayin'....

I was stunned that this quilt, "Some Assembly Required", by George Siciliano from Pennsylvania, did not place in this category.  This quilt, which is no bigger than 10 or 12 inches square, has 4,860 pieces of silk, foundation pieced and machine quilted.  To me, the work that went into this quilt and the "Dutch Flower Pots" above far exceed the first place winner that took only two weeks to whip together.  There, I have said it!  Someone will probably be mad at me!  I am not saying "Distraction II" is not beautiful because it is, but so are these, and in my opinion, these meet the criteria of a miniature quilt better because of the construction techniques used to create them.  Just my opinion!

Overall, the miniature category was pathetic!  The quilts were fantastic, but there were only seven of them!  In this picture you are seeing them all (except for the one the lady in the pink coat's head is blocking :)
I am throwing out a challenge to all miniature quilt makers to enter a miniature quilt in the Houston International Quilt Festival next year!  We need to boost up this category.  I would truly hate to see it disappear all together because I think miniature quilts are awesome and awe inspiring when displayed at quilt shows.  So Little Bits and other mini people - let's get busy!

Two down, five to go on my machine quilting marathon!  I finished this one yesterday!  It is somewhat of a miniature in the fact that it's only 12" x 10 3/4".  It is English Paper Pieced with Aboriginal fabrics from Australia.  I made it for my hubby.

I say it is somewhat of a miniature because the scale of the paper pieces is a bit bigger than a true miniature would be.  So it is technically a "small" quilt :)

I have entered the Houston quilt show with miniatures twice and my quilts were accepted both times.  See - they NEED miniatures!  While neither quilt won anything, it was awesome to have a quilt on display there.

This quilt is called "Reappearing Star".  It was foundation paper pieced and machine quilted.  There are 41 pieces in each diamond shape.  This quilt was in the Houston show in 2006.  I remember when I received the judge's comments, one of them loved the colors and one of them couldn't stand the colors.  So judging is a bit biased by our own opinions.

This quilt is my "Mini Grad Quilt".  I called it that because I made a large quilt like this for my son for his high school graduation out of Liberty Homestead hand-dyed fabrics and I loved it so much that I decided to make it one quarter of the size for me!  This quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted, but not paper pieced.  It appeared in the Houston show in 2009.

I really love this pattern "Alberta Stars" which I found in a magazine and I love the hand-dyed fabrics.  It measures about 17" x 20".  In order to be classified as miniature it cannot be any larger than 24 inches on one side and it has to be miniature in scale. In other words it as to look the same proportionally as the larger quilt.

I entered both my son's graduation quilt and my Mini Grad Quilt into the Springville Quilt Show in Springville, Utah because I thought they look so cute together!  The large quilt ended up winning a Judge's Choice award!  Here you can see them side by side, although it is a little too far away to get a good look at the mini.

So let's get busy on those miniature quilts!  Houston could have a fabulous display of miniatures next year (well this year's was fabulous too, but more fabulous with MORE quilts!)