I got an idea from Heather Bailey's blog. She let her 4-year-old daughter, Charlotte, loose in her good beads. Charlotte did a great job and it made me realize that I've been holding out on 7-year-old Elanor. I've given her "little girl" beads when we all know the big girl beads are way better.

I separated my jumbled beads into different colors so that it would be easier for her to see what was there. We used Tiger Tail which is stiff enough not to need a beading needle.

She was really careful with the little pans of beads. So who spilled them? I did!

She's really happy with her necklace and it looks lovely on her! And, if (when) she tires of it, we can take it apart and use the beads in other projects.

I've often told classes that it takes longer to applique little tiny pieces than it does "normal-sized" pieces. That's true for quilters who are beginning to intermediate appliquers. But I can honestly say that if you know what you're doing, appliqueing these 5" blocks is fast. I'm spending 2-3 nights per block. I know it took me 5-8 nights to sew each of the bigger blocks. I stitch 2-3 hours each evening.

You can see the the sashing and inner borders that I think I'll be using. I'm doing my best to make this mini quilt look as much like it's full-size cousin as I can.

I've been working on my mini-quilt for the Alzheimer's Quilt Challenge (I made that name up). It is going to be so cute!

In a recent class a student, Alice, showed me the "paper" dolls she had made for her granddaughter. They were seriously cute. The two fabrics, by Sheryl Rae Marquez for Windham Fabrics, have dolls on one piece and clothes on the other. There may be other colorways.

I had never seen this fabric and Alice was nice enough to send me some of what she had. Thank you, Alice! She suggested that I fuse the two pieces to fusible flannel which I couldn't find. I found some Pellon fusible fleece and used it instead. Elanor and I both did lots of cutting…

She's enjoying playing with them! Alice made a very nice folder for her granddaughter's paper dolls. I'm afraid Elanor is going to have to make do with a gallon-sized Ziplock.

Not very big at all! Here are two photos that show the mini block on top of the full-size, 24" x 24" blocks. As you can see, I have this little block sewn and am on to another one. Oh happy day!
 

It has been crazy at my house today! But I did promise to share news on the miniature I'm making. Truly, I don't know that this qualifies as "miniature" – it's more like a really small quilt. What you see here are the pieced backgrounds.

Our new book, Applique Outside the Lines, is all about not using a ruler and a more casual approach to applique placement. I made even these small backgrounds the way we describe it in the book. This sort of background has a distinctive, happy, mid-century modern attitude.

As you can see, I've begun appliqueing the first block…