Sunday, January 14, 2007

Connecting Corners

One of my favorite techniques to play with, especially on a miniature scale is "connecting corners". I first tried this technique in the late 90's, when I made a mystery quilt written by Susan Druding called Four Star Square. (Susan attributes this technique to Mary Ellen Hopkins.) On the right is the mystery quilt I made from this pattern. It is a 40" square wallhanging.
Since then I have had lots of fun playing with the technique and have made many miniature quilts over the years using variations of this block...
starting with a square and sewing a triangle on one, two, three or all four corners, then playing with layout designs. Also, by changing the size of the connecting corner, you can get different effects. On the left is a quilt I finished last year called "Flower Children". The flower blocks are made of four petals. Each petal has three white connecting corners and one dark green connecting corner.
Below is a scan of my latest miniature quilt using connecting corners. The blocks are .75" finished and the finished quilt is 6.75" square. (See Dec. 10th blog for photo of some of the pieces sitting on my ruler ready for sewing.) I played with some design ideas on EQ5 until I found this border that I liked. The binding is made from a piece of ribbon.
I am teaching this miniature pattern this week to other miniature enthusiasts, who will hopefully enjoy making their version as much as I enjoyed making mine. However, one of the quilters has already emailed me to say that she has cut the tiny pieces for the class, but instead of calling them squares, she calls them "swears"! I think that means she's not enjoying it so far!!!

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