Tidy Up Tuesday - Tales of a TINY Supernova

Welcome to another edition of Tidy Up Tuesday!!  I fell in love with Sarah's Supernova quilt back in February 2017 during her Stunning Stars Quilt Along for that year's Hands2Help tutorial series.  (The current H2H Charity Quilt Challenge is in full swing.  It's not too late for YOU to participate!!!)

When she recently posted her Jewel-Toned Supernova...

... I knew what I wanted to do for the swap that I had promised to do with my friend Belinda in Maine.  A mini version of Sarah's quilt!  I ran the idea by her and she LOVED the idea.  I quickly sorted my scraps and production ground to a halt.

Then, Sarah posted that she, too, was thinking of making her own mini with Bonus HSTs left from making her grandson's annual quilt. It would be a Shrunken Supernova (just like I had in the works!)  She thought that was a great idea and shared this 13.5" quilt a couple weeks later, posted HERE:

I got a good start on squaring up my blocks at the mid-February Friday Night Sew-In:

Prior to that, I spent time at my evening Quilt Bee preparing squares for sewing into HSTs:

 And spent a happy afternoon at the machine building HSTs from the turquoise and pink scrap baskets:

Until the February Friday Night Sew-In, when I squared them up:

After pressing them, of course:

Now, was the time to layout the little quilt!!

You can't IMAGINE how much time I spent getting the HSTs aligned in the "proper" orientation on my design floor:

And then THIS happened:

The funny thing is that it was a blessing in disguise, as it really made me evaluate the prior layout... and make some changes:

After this, the layout sat undisturbed on the table of my longarm:

I'm slow, but finally said...

"Let the stitching begin!" That was my project at the early-March meeting of Sew/Craft Friends-zy and it took almost ALL DAY:

I started with a chain of tiny HSTs:

Moved on to cut into columns of pairs:

Then the first step was pressed:

Next up was pairs of pairs:

Followed by rows... or is that columns:

Pairs of columns:

It's a TINY top:

And my friend Tiffany thought SHE was sewing small:

It still needed a bit more pressing:

This photo is to give you a sense of scale, along with the reason that I DO NOT use steam in quilt making:

The top and bottom rows flared a bit, but I wasn't about to remake (now that I had finally gotten the thing FLAT!!)

I took batting and backing to my Quilt Bee's mid-month SECU Sew Day to layer:

And... it's time for quilting!!!

 I started with the pink:

Then, moved on to the turquoise quilting:

Oops!  Went a LITTLE crazy with the turquoise:

The binding was meant to be done by machine, my preferred method for small quilted items.  Special thanks to Helena, who sewed down the binding by hand, as I had (accidentally!) sewn it on to the front of the quilt... instead of the back:

Here I am with the complete quilt:

Soon, it was on its way to a new home:

This is a reminder of the scale of the piecing:

Getting a good photograph proved to be challenging:

You MIGHT have seen this sneak peek in an earlier post:

One final shot, the back of the quilt:

It rode around in the car with me for several weeks.  I just HAD to show every.  Living. SOUL!!  It was too adorable not to (perhaps said with a Mother's love.)

SEW...

I quilted it.  You know what THAT means, don't you?  Show and Tell, of course?  I attended every quilt meeting possible before sending this baby out in the mail.  I'm pleased to say that it is FINALLY on its way to a new home.  I made it with the recipient in mind.  Once it arrives, we'll see how she like it.  (If she doesn't, she can just mail it back and I'll make her something different.  After all, there are no less than FIVE other people who were chomping at the bit for me to give it to them!)

This little mini started with 1.5" squares and I sewed on each side of the diagonal to make HSTs, which were trimmed down to 1" squares.  At the last minute, I decided that I could sew a quarter-inch seam.  That brought the sewn squares down to a half-inch each!!

My completed Tiny Supernova quilt measures five and three-quarter inches square.  It's made of 100 HSTs!!!  Can you wrap your mind around that?!?  It was SEW much fun.

Sharing with:

Kelly for Needle and Thread Thursday

and

 Sarah at Confessions for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

Special thanks to the following contributors:

To random quilting friends for sharing their scraps with me.  I feel SEW lucky to have each of you in my life!

To Bowie on Ravelry for destashing her leftover black fabric which turned out to be PERFECT for use as the background,

To Jellybean for sharing the PERFECT backing fabric,

and

Especially to Sarah for designing a pattern that was SEW inspiring!

Until next time...

Sew something TINY!!!