Mini Quilt Mosaic
Size 12″ x 8″
Requirements:
15″ x 11″ black background fabric
Selection of small scraps of bright fabrics (batiks and hand dyes work well)
Bondaweb (Wonder Under)
Multi-coloured thread for quilting
Wadding and backing fabric
Note of caution before you proceed: When working with such small bonded pieces of fabric, take great care not to put hot iron on the bonded side (that is wrong side) of the fabric, or you will end up with a very gunged up iron!
Technique:
First of all I grabbed my box of bright coloured scraps.
I decided on the size of my design area and marked it with a yellow marking pencil on my black background fabric. I wanted to keep my design within this yellow marked border.
I chose pieces of my coloured scraps that I thought might be suitable for my design and laid them on my black fabric until I began to get a feel for my colour scheme. This was to be a rough idea to give me a springboard to begin my design. I knew these would be flexible and probably change somewhat as I proceeded.
I decided on the fabric that I would start with. I had an idea that I would start with three key colours.
Then I added my preliminary choices of colour choices to go around these first 3 colours. These choices will still be flexible and may change as I proceed, but I am just trying to get a feel for my design colours.
I ironed some bondaweb (wonder under) on the back of some of these fabrics.
Now, I began to cut out some mosaic shapes, both squares and rectangles, trying to make sure that they were wonky shapes and not uniform. To give you an idea of size, the wonky squares are a little under 1″ square.
A helpful hint next – To remove the paper backing of the bondaweb from these small fabric pieces is fiddly and the easiest way is to score the paper side through with a pin and then it is easier to find an edge to begin the removal of the paper.
Next, you will see I have ironed these bonded pieces of fabric on to my black background in a square’ish fashion, making sure I have left gaps between to create the mosaic effect and to leave enough room for a quilting stitch.
Then I have repeated this process and created two more square/rectangle shapes on my background fabric.
Now, I begin to border these squares with more mosaic shapes, using the same technique. You will see that I am varying the mosaic colours as I go.
I continued in this manner, adding more mosaic shapes and working my way around the quilt as shown in the following photos, until my design was complete.
I have then layered up my mini quilt with black wadding (and backing) and quilted with multi coloured thread. I have used YLI Jeans Stitch thread, which is nice and thick and shows up the quilting very nicely. I have quilted through each of the mosaic shapes, just inside the shapes (to secure them) and in the black spaces between the mosaics and you will see that on some occasions I have two (or sometimes three) lines of quilting. It is very random and the amount of lines of stitching I have used depends on the amount of black space available.
I haven’t bound my mini quilt as I am going to mount it on to a piece of canvas so that I can display it on the wall as a picture. I also haven’t actually used any backing fabric on mine. Only wadding, because I knew I was going to mount it.
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