My friend Terri Ann @Childlike Fascination, who was also one of the co-hosts of the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers’s Blog Hop, has worked hard to develop an idea she had to make patchwork and craft more accessible to everyone – not just quilters and sewists. This weekend, Terri Ann launched Mini Barn Quilts, and today I am really excited to share with you my review of one of the kits that I had the opportunity to play with over the weekend.
Hexi Flower Mini Barn Quilt Kit
This weekend I had the extreme pleasure to get to work with the Hexi Flower Mini Barn Quilt Kit. As regular readers of my blog might know, English Paper Piecing (EPP) is not currently on my list of obsessions, so I jumped at the chance of making this version of a Hexi Flower! The quality of the kit was apparent when I opened the bag. I love that it is made from bamboo (a very renewable resource), and the details like the light etching on the base plate for positioning the pieces make it a very polished kit that was very user friendly and intuitive to use (especially for us quilters!).
Fabric Preparation
As these are craft kits, the sky is really the limit in how to decorate and assemble them (staining, painting…). However, I really wanted to work with my fabric stash, and what better project to use my newly acquired Tula Pink Eden, Mosaic in Glacier? I started by meticulously cutting out sections of the fabric. On the wrong side of the fabric, I traced around the edge of a hexi piece so that when I was ready to glue the piece to the fabric, I would be confident in where to position the bamboo.
Auditioning Fabric
It isn’t necessary to precut the fabric, but I also trimmed my fabric into roughly hexi shapes to be able to layout on the base plate to make sure I was happy with the colors and grouping prior to committing to gluing them to the bamboo pieces. The Mosaic print seemed so perfect with its almost hex-groupings, and I liked that I got to use the full color gradient of groupings from the print.
Using Materials On Hand
Well, this is where life and mother nature threw me a curve ball. I had planned to leave my tiny mountain town and go shopping for Mod Podge in a large craft store this weekend. However, the mudslides of Thursday evening made my town an island and it really was not an option. To the extent that my husband had to be flown in a light aircraft to get home mid-day on Friday (no injuries let alone fatalities are reported from the mudslides, and due to quick thinking my husband managed to save our commuter car from being totaled). We are very lucky. However, it left me exploring the cupboards around the house wondering if I could still make this mini barn quilt or if I would have to be patient and wait. I found some Spray 77, and I sprayed the adhesive on the bamboo pieces and it worked wonderfully to adhere to the fabric.
Freshly Glued Pieces
One of the really nice things about Spray 77 is that it tacks very quickly. So after a few minutes, I used a razor blade to trim away the excess fabric. Note that I did the trimming on my typical Olfa mat, not my nice butcher block table top. 🙂
Trimming Hexis
A little bit of wood glue and positioning following the etched lines on the backing plate later, and I had a finished hexi flower mini barn quilt!
Finished Hexi Flower Mini Barn Quilt
When my husband cut this rose for me on Saturday, he told me it is likely the last rose of the season. It smells glorious, for the record, and I want to share it with you here to help remember the beauty of flowers as we enter fall and winter weather.
My Sewing Space
The mini barn quilts come with simple hanging hardware, or you can purchase a mini easel from the store for display. I chose to hang my Hexi Flower on the wall behind my sewing space to enjoy. As the mini barn quilts finish at 5 inches square, it is right at home with my growing mini mini quilt collection.
Follow Your Heart Wherever it Takes You
My mother gifted me a beautiful angel Christmas tree ornament a few years ago that I felt needed to be on permanent display. It says, “Follow your heart wherever it takes you.” I keep it in my sewing room (just under my business license from my town), and I think it is apt and appropriate to hang my Mini Barn Quilt with it as well. It takes a leap of faith, hard work, and moments of fear to follow your heart. Terri Ann, congratulations on making such a beautiful and polished product.
I have already ordered several more to give as Christmas gifts this year. I would love to know what creative ideas you have for decorating a mini barn quilt. Would you use fabric, paint, stain, or something else entirely?
These little mini barn quilts are just too stinkin’ cute!! I just knew it wouldn’t take you long to find a use for your Tula fabric 😉
Glad to hear you are all safe and sound and that your husband was able to save the car. BTW, I can smell that rose from here!! My mom had a rose bed (think about a half acre. . . yeah, she never did flowers on a small scale LOL) and that rose looks very familiar, the site of it instantly brought the scent to my nose 🙂
Agh! You’re ahead of me. 😀 I haven’t figure out what fabric to use, though I do have modge podge already… I love your choice of fabrics, very soft and pretty. 😀
Ohh that is super cute! A hexie I might actually do, as like you I am not hooked on hexies.
Wow Yvonne, I love what you have done with your mini barn quilt! I had no idea Terri Ann was doing this!!! I have made many barn quilts and love them in whatever form they are! I think your fabric use is really neat…I would likely have to paint SOMEthing on one, even if just the backing board 🙂 (did you see my bird houses?)
(They are on my Tutorials page! Sorry for the dbl comment!)
It’s been a bit of a secret project SarahZ! I wanted to keep it a bit under wraps until I decided when and how to launch them. Barn quilts fascinate me too and I actually had an artist friend paint some of these kits too and the 3D effect with the pieces painted is really NEAT too!
Terri Ann I think you have come up with a really durable idea…I wish you the best of success with it!!!!!!
I saw Terri Ann post about these previously and they look like quality products. I love that they are bamboo (says the tree hugger who owns only electric cars!). The mosaic fabrics look great with this project. For me, if I were to make one, I would probably opt for scrapbook paper or markers and mod podge.
I was going to do a scrap book paper sample but when I stood in the scrap book aisle I missed the petting of the fabric in my craft room but I hope you do get a chance to scrapbook one up and post a pic of it Diana. (I love that I found bamboo to source for them too since it’s such a great renewable resource!)
I’ve been playing with Hexies too this weekend though not in a cute kit like this. Looks like great fun.
I have always loved seeing blocks on barns and these kits are so perfect! Using fabric is such a genius idea Yvonne, it turned out perfect even with all the curve balls you had to deal with. Congrats to Terri Ann and her great idea! I think I would try fabric on one, paint on another…really pretty cool gift idea too!
Jayne wait till you see how delicious they look stained! The bamboo grain comes out beautifully there too!
Such a fun idea. I love them and I love the fabric you used on yours..
It turned out so cute! It sounds like your process was a lot faster than the 3-5 layers of modpodge. I think these would be a scrap “busting” project for me.
You’re right Renee, this is definitely faster. The layers of ModPodge take a bit of time to dry but it all depends on what look you are going for with it. I like the glossy sheen of ModPodge so the couple hours coming back and applying coats was worth it for me. I can’t wait to see all the other creative ways everyone else uses this kits too. Hooray for limitless creative options!
Your mini turned out so cute! I am also planning on getting some kits as xmas presents this year.
Darling! I’m glad you were able to make it work with what you had on hand, but I’m especially grateful you and your husband (and car) are okay.
Yvonne, your new fabric was a brilliant choice to use for this project; it worked beautifully! Like you, I would chose fabrics to decorate this kit with and hang it somewhere close to one of my sewing machines. Your angel and new mini barn quilt are fabulous together along with your new minis. Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful creative day!
I must say I’m envious of your rose, we had our first official killing frost overnight this past weened so there will be no other flowers blooming here (except those hardy mums I guess….)
I love that you found a different way to put the kits together! I hemmed and hawed about whether to include glues with the kit but I wanted the kits to be a starting point for creativity and to allow the crafter to go in whatever direction called to them! I feel a bit honored you dipped into your Tula stash for my lil kit, but you already know how much I love what you’ve done here!!
What an awesome use of your fabric. These kits would make wonderful gifts. Glad to hear you survived the mudslides.
I’d probably use fabric to decorate mine, though I love the look of stain too. Reminds me of inlaid woodworking. I love this idea and your version is great 🙂
I love your hexies , and I do love hexies . I am more concerned about your mud slides , that sounds scary and a month or so ago you had local fires . Sometimes I wish for excitement but boring is safe I think
I would use fabric, of course! I love how the one fabric gave you so much variety in colour.
I bought a box yesterday to decorate with fabric as a test piece. I now wonder how many years it will take me to get around to actually doing it. Sigh.
Those kits look very cute, such a good idea. Although I’m not the biggest EPP fan, I can happily while away an hour here and there hand sewing them if I’m half watching something on tv, so I think I’d have to go down a non fabric route with these just because I could do the fabric route without the kit and it would be good to take advantage of the versatility a wooden kit gives you. I’m not sure what I would do though, I’m thinking some kind of mixed media and for some reason I initially thought of faces/eyes hiding on each hexie, no idea why, but it would be interesting to do something very untraditional with a very traditional quilt shape.