Mini Madness with Island Batik

Most often I start a project by sketching it out in EQ and this time is no exception.

This was my general idea…

If you want a PDF of the 4” pineapple block, click here

I then started off with the layer cake from Island Batik which I had already washed and I only wanted to use the blues in the pack

I carefully measured and cut out the pieces and figured out that I can make 16 blocks using 9 fabrics (2 of each) and also make sets of 2 blocks with a different center fabric and it growing outwardly in the same order.

So A,B,C,D and block 2 would be B,C,D,E etc

This was a very tedious process but I knew that so that’s why I started soon after getting my IB box and then I worked on the blocks while I was working on something else too.

a several days later I had all 16 blocks done!

I trimmed them,

Then I laid out the blocks how I wanted them so it was symmetrical

and I like to remove the papers before sewing the blocks together

Then I decided to turn it into a pillow, and I had a pillow shape that was 20” so I added a 2” (2 1/2”) border in the light blue

and since it was a pillow I wanted to quilt it first with a backing piece and found this variegated fantastico thread that was in the IB box too and it seemed perfect!

I outlined the 16 block square then quilting inside each little square and then straight lines on the border, the first line was the width of my walking foot, the second line was a part of the middle of the foot I could see thru and I lined that up with the first line and stitched out the 2nd line, then repeated both another time

Since I had plenty of the light blue fabric left, I cut 20 1/2” WOF strips, folded them in half and cut the folded piece down to about 14” or maybe it was 12”, I can’t remember, but after trimming the front, I could lay these two pieces on top with the folds overlapping in the middle, then sew down 1/4” around and add a zigzag and trim the corners and VOILA! it was done!

Looked great on my husband’s new couch in his “man cave”- or maybe he thinks it’s too girly??

speaking of girly- I plopped Anja on the couch so you can see how big the pillow is

Even though the “theme” is Mini Madness, the pillow is not mini, but the blocks are!!

I think it turned out great! and if hubby thinks it’s too girly, I’ll move it to our family room and I’ll use it -nah, he really doesn’t care! and what is NOT shown on the pictures, is that there’s 4 of my quilts in his office/ man cave! two are hanging up and two are on the couch….none of them match and none of them are very manly- hmmm maybe I should change that!?

oh, and speaking of madness, I came across these online the other day!