May 26, 2021

Mini Quilt Tutorial

I made this mini quilt using the economy block and wrote up a quick sewing tutorial, so you can make this adorable mini quilt, too.

It’s a great size for hanging up in the sewing room, as I’m doing, but also would make a lovely doll quilt for the little ones.

The economy block is great for fussy cutting fabric that has little scenes in it. Tasha Noel (designs for Riley Blake Designs) always has the sweetest artwork in her main prints. I’ve bought several of her collections over the years. Love each of them and used many of her coordinates for doll clothes over the years.

Ice Cream Social Dress
Doll Dress Boutique

This was one of the first collections of hers I bought, way back. I stashed it away with the plan to make a mini quilt for my sewing room. After unpacking some deeply hidden boxes, I found it! yay! The little girls are adorable and I adore those little birds.

Here’s the finished quilt top. The blocks finish at 5″ and the quilt top finishes at 15″ x 20″ if no borders are added.

I had plan to make the blocks smaller, but the pictures would not have fit the center of the blocks. Cat Bird Quilts blog has a table for the cutting instructions, in several different sized blocks. You can check it out here.

Materials

Fat quarter or scraps of focus fabric
1 fat quarter of aqua print
1 fat quarter of navy print

Tools used in this tutorial:

Rotary cutting set-up (mat, rotary cutter and acrylic ruler
5 1/2″ Square ruler (or larger)
3″ and 4″ square rulers are also helpful
Cutting Edge by Marci Baker (you can purchase it here)
basic sewing supplies

5″ x 5″ Economy Block Tutorial

For each block, cut:

Center: 3″ square (1)
Inner square: 3″ square (2)
Outer square: 3 3/4″ square (2)

Fussy Cutting the Center Squares

Fussy cutting: I use the cutting edge when fussy cutting. These repositional vinyl strips work great to keep it square and centered.

Ideally, you would use an acrylic ruler the same size square as you are cutting. Place a dot sicker on the center mark while fussy cutting and use the lines on the ruler to watch that the horizontal and or vertical lines in the design look to be straight, before cutting any sides of the square.

Alas, I couldn’t find my 3″ square acrylic ruler, so I used a larger size and these reusable vinyl strips, Cutting Edge, by Marci Baker, to mark the 3″ square while fussy cutting. They’re pretty great for fussy cutting.

Plot out your choices before cutting any. You’ll save fabric and not miss out on an image you want to use that may get inadvertently cut into. I placed pins on the designs I knew I wanted, marked their perimeters, then found the rest I needed, which is 12 for this project.

After making 2 cuts, the cutting edge can be placed snug against the 2 cut edges to be aligned and cut the remaining 2 edges for a perfect fussy-cut square.

Cut the 3″ squares (inner square) and the 3 3/4″ squares (outer square) on the diagonal, corner to corner. Each square into 2 triangles. For each block, you will have 4 triangles of each color, the outer squares being larger, after cutting these squares on the diagonal.

Sewing the Block

All seams are sewn with 1/4″ seam allowance. There’s no need to sew a scant 1/4″ for this block.

Center the inner square triangle pieces (made from the 3″ squares) to opposite sides of the center square. Pin and sew with right sides together.

A great tip I read on the Diary of a Quilter blog: Fold and press the triangles in half to mark the center. Fold and press the center square in half both directions to mark the center on all four sides. This way, you can align the centers together easily, taking out the guesswork or need to measure the “dog ear” edges on the triangles, which is what I’ve always done. This little trick may work for you.

2. Press the seam allowances toward the triangles and use a rotary blade and acrylic ruler to trim the dog eared edges off the triangles to be straight across and even with the center square.