Simple Whatnots II Book – Sew Happy by Sarah

I love to see a secondary design pop out and add some interest to a quilt. For this Double Dutch Stars pattern, I can’t help but see the diamonds between the stars. As this little runner is a gift for my mom, I chose green fabrics to go along with the color scheme of her living room. It turned out just how I’d hoped!

For the quilting, I simply followed the seams. I did add a little loopy motif inside the large squares inside the stars, but I’m finding with any of the smaller areas and busier fabric it isn’t worthwhile to do extreme quilt designs. They get lost.

I was surprised to find this mini fits perfectly on my sewing desk! It’s the perfect size, but it needs to go to its new home. This gives me a great idea to make more minis to switch out for this desk, though!

The year 2022 is going to be the year of the minis. 🙂 I have joined the Simple Whatnots Club through a quilt shop where we will be getting a Kim Diehl pattern each month. My goal is to keep up and make them all!

Finished Size: 10.5" x 25.75"
Pattern: Double Dutch Stars from Simple Whatnots II book by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Gratitude & Grace by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass

Just as promised, here’s another mini quilt! I bought Kim Diehl’s Simple Whatnots II book and plan to make my way through most of the projects with a stack of her Gratitude & Grace fabric line. Quilt number one is unlike anything I’ve made before! Its scrappy look with vibrant colors, dynamic design, and tiny 1-inch wide strips (before sewing together!) were all new to me and I’m very pleased with the result.

First off: 1-inch strips and 1-inch squares! I tried to cut as accurately as I could with those teeny things! I’m wondering now if 1 inch is the smallest pieces I’ll encounter in this mini quilt journey or will they get smaller? Everything went together well, though! I took a little bit of extra time trying to make sure the same fabrics didn’t touch each other — you know, “controlled scrappy”. 🙂

For the quilting I used some brand new rulers I wanted to try out: Baptist Fans Expansion Pack from Michael Davison. They were surprisingly easy to use after I watched his YouTube videos. A great all-over quilting look for someone who doesn’t have a computerized longarm. Since this was such a small quilt I actually did the quilting using my regular sewing machine with free motion.

Finished Size: 16.5" x 17"
Pattern: Matchsticks from Simple Whatnots II book by Kim Diehl
Fabric: Gratitude & Grace by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass

Category: Simple Whatnots II Book

Double Dutch Stars Mini Quilt

Matchsticks Mini Quilt