Hallowvember: Mini Trinket Quilt

I subscribe to quite a few magazines. They are great motivation. My method: I have a Post-It flag dispenser on the ledge of the tub. I go through the magazines, marking things I’d like to try. Then I copy the first page of the article and put it in a notebook, making sure the issue is somewhere on the page. The magazine is stored neatly in date order, so I can choose something from the notebook, and grab the appropriate magazine.

I mention all this, because I picked something from the notebook tonight. This mini trinket quilt is inspired by Vesna Taneva-Miller, and was featured in the Summer 2015 issue of Sew Somerset.

For this project, I’m going to use upcycled shrink plastic–#6 plastic from a takeout container. Rock N Roll is one of my favorite sushi rolls. It’s deep fried. Don’t judge.

I cut out the best piece of plastic, gave it a good sanding on one side, and stamped on the sanded side. The spell book is from Inkadinkado’s Nevermore set. I often leave the pressed symbols from the container in, as I like to show where the material came from.

Next, the image is lightly colored with pencils. You don’t want to add too much color, as it will become very concentrated when the plastic shrinks.

A 1/8″ is used to make stitching holes around the image. A couple of these got very small, and had to be opened with one of my tiny diamond files. Not much to be done about that.

All shrunk. See what I mean about color concentration?

Time to choose fabric! Muslin, tulle, a very soft fleesish (it’s a word because I say so) thing, and some lace scraps.

I used a machine to go around the layers several times with black thread. Red embroidery thread attached the spell book.

I’ve been wanting to use those silver beads forever. Along with the red delicas, they are nice accents.

Muslin backing is added once all the embellishment is done. Because of those nifty corner beads, I had to hand-sew. And since I was hand-sewing, hey, why not add some jute?

Mind you, I had to do this twice, because I cannot sew a straight line. The second time, fusible interfacing kept everything in place.

Eyelets were set in the upper corners (because I found a Crop-A-Dile for half price at Tuesday Morning!), and binding tape used to make an over-the-head necklace.

The only thing I would do differently is use a shaped stamp, like a pumpkin or skull, so it was more immediately recognizable. This thing is tiny, and if someone wanted to see what it was, they’d so be up in my face. Overall, though, I loved the process, and I think the result is fabulous.