Today and Always-February Simple Small Quilt tutorial

 Happy February everyone!  Here is my small quilt for this month.  I hope you will make one too!




I drew the center out by hand.  I wanted mine very simple.  Feel free to use my center-the drawings are below- or create your own-I am sure you are a better artist than I am, and I know most of you are better at embroidery than I. 

 Here is my drawing.  It is on a half sheet of regular copy paper.















Here is the reverse.  I just traced mine with iron on pencil against the window.  Iron it on a 6.5 X 8.5 inch piece of neutral-I used tea dyed muslin.  Embroider the design on the muslin.

 You need 28 neutral 2.5 inch squares and 28 color 2.5 inch squares.  I chose only 3 different color scraps-red and blues from my civil war reproductions stash. 

Draw a diagonal line on the back of the neutrals, layer one neutral with one color and sew on the line.  Trim on one side .25 inch away from the stitch line, iron open. 
Trim these to 1.5 inch square. 

Lay them out to decide the sawtooth pattern-reversing them in the middle-see below. 

 I pressed the seams open so there would be less bulk.  Be sure to stitch through the exact points. 

 I made the order on the bottom opposite the top order and the same for the two sides-opposite each other.  See below.

Here is my small top, ready to sandwich with just a few safety pins. 

Actually, I went ahead and sewed the binding on to the top before it was sandwiched because I wanted to make sure my points were perfect.

Then I hand quilted around the saw tooth border-YES, I DID HAND QUILT! 


Then sewed the binding down on the back, by hand.
The finished quilt measures 8.5 X 10.5 inches. 

I added buttons for embellishment and it is all done!See the picture at the top for my button placement.  I was lucky to find some small enough and then to find the wooden heart button.