This quarter my guild has a mini & MAXI theme and a challenge to go with it. We could choose from the half-square triangle, pineapple, robbing Peter to pay Paul or crown and star blocks to make something to fit the theme.
I chose the pineapple block because I had never made one even though it is quite similar to the log cabin block which I love to make. Going maxi would quickly lead to a quilt top and, since I already have several tops still waiting to be quilted, going mini seemed the wiser choice here. A postcard maybe?
Scrolling through Google images for inspiration I saw a lot of different pineapple variations but they were all square, as most quilt blocks are. Since I was thinking about making a postcard, I started wondering what the pineapple block would look like if it was stretched out to fit a 4×6” block.
So, I went to Adobe Illustrator to play around a bit and I came up with a FPP design that I thought promising. It definitely qualifies as mini with 69 pieces and the smallest less than ¼” wide.
For the fabrics I chose a simple pastel colour scheme that is a bit outside of the colour range that I usually gravitate toward but I quite like it. The background is Bella solid Mint and the triangles are Coral Rose and Pale Pink. I thought it fun to make the small triangles pop.
At the beginning it was a bit fiddly, but the block came together quicker than I had expected. After a couple of rounds it’s possible to sew the four triangles in one go before you need to press again which really speeds things up.
To finish, I paired the patchwork top with a light blue fabric interfaced with Decovil light and simply zig zagged the edges with a reddish thread.
All in all, a successful experiment!
69 pieces? Less than a 1/4″ wide? My head hurts just thinking about it. Looks great though.
It’s really not so bad using the foundation paper. Without the paper it would definitely have been a lot more difficult to keep things straight.
Oh my goodness this is awesome! You are now the queen of foundation piecing! I still plan to test your pattern I’ve just been traveling a bit lately.
Thank you! And yes, I saw some pretty awesome pictures on Instagram!
Well, that was certainly an exercise in precision piecing. Paper foundations really do make the most amazing things possible, don’t they? You really wouldn’t want a whole quilt like that though, would you? It would be so heavy because of all the seams, and as for quilting it – nightmare. Great fun as an experiment, though.
Yes, it is fun to experiment like this and as a postcard it works well. The block was super stiff though compared to a “normal” block so no, I would not like to quilt an entire quilt with blocks like these.
What a feat to sew such tiny pieces, and what a beautiful effect. I am also very impressed by the way you altered the pattern to get it to be oblong.
Thank you! Designing the pattern is probably what I enjoy most. I am now thinking about other designs that would look cool when stretched out into a rectangle…