My Small World

A blog post about this quilt finish is about three weeks overdue. Though I completed the quilt in January, the weather has prevented me from photographing it as I wanted. We've had rain, cold (in the 40s which is cold for Florida), and strong winds. The weather of late, is the kind that makes it much nicer to be indoors in a sunny room.

This is "My Small World - The Villages." It measures 33" X 52" and is the sort of quilt that makes one pause to look at the details.

That's one reason why it now hangs in the entryway of our house. If nothing else, it's sure to be a conversation-starter when we have guests.

Everyone who makes My Small World, a design by Australian quilter Jen Kingwell, interprets it as they choose. I've seen a lovely variety of finishes with these being favorites: Di's "I Spy"; and Cindy's "A Day at Disneyland." You need only to look at the Instagram hashtag #mysmallworld or #mysmallworldqal (quilt-a-long) and a beautiful range of interpretations can be seen.

My Small World includes regular piecing, as well as hand appliqué, English paper-piecing (there's a "hill" of hexagons), and foundation paper-piecing.

Most of the approximately 550 neutral sky squares finish at 1" X 1". I really enjoyed that I didn't need to buy a single piece of fabric to make this quilt. I even had a backing fabric in my stash. (What does that say about my stash?!)

Specific to My Small World, I wanted to use colors (brights), prints (palms, oranges, fish, sand, beach chairs, flamingos), and designs that reflect Florida and The Villages. In place of embroideries for the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Sydney Opera House, I embroidered the local Sumter Landing lighthouse, a palm, and a golf cart. Hence my reason for photographing the quilt on our golf cart.

"The Sunshine State" and "Flip Flops," are among some of the words in the quilt. You will also find a "blah" and "Delight yourself in the Lord."

I like this photo because of the shadow I made on the quilt. You can see I use a point-and-shoot camera.

To put the quilt together, I used Quilter's Dream Poly batting, and quilted two designs - a cloud-like free-hand formation for the sky, and cross-hatch in the lower "land" areas - simple quilting that doesn't distract from the busyness of the prints.

When this quilt popped up on Instagram last June, I jumped into the quilt-along. Though it's taken me six months to finish it, and many quilters have finished theirs ahead of me, other quilters are still working on theirs.

Now the original Quiltmania magazine pattern (with its many mistakes!) is out-of-print, and has been turned into a regular pattern... just in case you'd like to make Your Small World in fabric. Linda