May Mini: Green Gumbo

 May's mini quilt was inspired by Wendy's (The Constant Quilter) April mini quilt.

When I saw Wendy's charming mini, it reminded me of the Two and Four Quilt - another quilt she inspired me to make.  

I already had the green reproduction scraps out to choose fabrics for a Blackford's Beauty block, so I decided to try my hand at Wendy's mini quilt.

Thanks to Barb's (Fun with Barb) helpful Nine Patch Tutorial, I had the nine patch blocks made in a twinkling.  The remaining strippy construction didn't take much longer and soon I had a mini quilt top!

As I was assembling all those little green scraps, I wondered what name I could give the quilt.  It struck me that all those green fabric bits were like the ingredients for green gumbo, or Gumbo Z'herbes (zahb). 

 

Gumbo Z'herbes is a traditional dish often served during Lent.  It's made with a minimum of at least five leafy greens.  More varieties may be used, but one must always have an uneven number of greens for the pot.  A good Creole cook might include mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, scallions, etc.

Traditional Gumbo Z'herbes is meatless, but over the past couple of years, versions with meat have become popular.  One of the most well-known versions was made by Chef Leah Chase, and served on Holy Thursday at her family's restaurant, Dooky Chase.   

Dear Hubby and I recently learned to make this wonderful gumbo, and it has become a family favorite!

I did some quilting in the ditch and added a dark, leafy green single binding.  Cutting board courtesy of Dear Hubby.

The backing fabric is an ancient one from the stash - I'm not even sure how old it is.  I love the print, but with the blue and yellow accents, it just never played well with other fabrics.  It's perfect for gumbo, though!

Azaleas for March

This month's mini quilt was planned to use up scraps of New Orleans 1850 fabric from my Beautiful Crescent quilt.

I had picked up a copy of Doug Leko's Tabletastic at my Local Quilt Shop.  

 

 After looking through the patterns for months, I finally decided to give "London Wall" a try with the purple and gold scraps.

 

 However, when I pulled out the actual bag of scraps, I realized I had forgotten about the yards and yards of border print scraps from the New Orleans 1850 collection.  I decided these border print strips deserved to be the focus of their own quilt, and the other purple and gold scraps needed to stay with the border print.

It wasn't difficult to find some other happy fabrics in my stash that would work for the London Wall table topper.  

I was inspired by the current bloom of azaleas all over New Orleans.

 

Finished size:  18" x 18"

I call my version "Azaleas on the Avenue" - a nod to the masses of blooming azaleas all along St. Charles Avenue.  St. Charles is one of the main thoroughfares of the city, lined with historic homes, universities, and parks.  It's also the path of the iconic St. Charles streetcar line. 

 

 

 

March Mini

 Over the years, I have accumulated a stash of mini quilt tops that for one reason or another, never got quilted and finished.  I turn to this stash when I need a practice project or just the satisfaction of a quickly finished project.

Since January, I've been working on a batch of t-shirt quilts - a project meant to empty out plastic bins full of t-shirts waiting to "some day" be turned into quilts.  

Thinking about four large t-shirt quilts in need of binding, I decided it was time to perfect my machine binding technique!

After trying out the technique with some practice machine quilting squares and left-over binding scraps, I decided it was time to try binding a "real" project.

From the stash, I chose a mini quilt top in bright spring colors.  After some quick straight-line quilting, I was ready to add the green binding.

The method I use for machine binding is the opposite of traditional binding:  the binding is stitched to the back of the quilt, then folded over and machine-stitched to the top of the quilt.  Appliqué glue is a great way to hold the binding in place prior to stitching.

I use my handy-dandy edge stitch foot to guide the line of top stitching close to the edge of the binding.  For this mini quilt, I used matching thread and a straight stitch, but this binding technique would also lend itself to decorative threads and stitches.

Here's a close-up of the finished, top-stitched binding.

Now I have a cute ~finished~ mini quilt on which to display some vintage flamingos!