Monday 21 April 2008

Small/doll quilt vs "miniature" quilt




Because several people have mentioned this issue, either in emails to me or on their blogs, I thought I'd clarify what is meant (at least in the context of this swap) by a doll quilt.

All we are looking for in this swap is a small quilt - 12" square minimum, 20" square maximum. You can make the blocks any size you like - you can work with normal block sizes, such as 6", 8", 10" or 12" blocks - for instance, the little quilt I made for the Spring Four Seasons Quilt Swap (pictured above - total size 22" square - and I seemed to have failed to take a photo after the binding was sewn down - drat) used 6" blocks to start. These are blocks that are often made in a 6" size anyway. If you want to, you can scale down larger blocks to a smaller version, for instance, make a 6" version of a traditionally 12" block. You can do something abstract and/or arty. You can make a mini-wholecloth quilt. Stylistically, it's up to you.



What you do NOT have to do is make what's usually referred to as a miniature quilt - such as the excellent examples above in this photo from the Cincinnati Enquirer - as you can see, the blocks in these quilts are teeny-tiny. If you would like to make a miniature quilt in this sense, I won't stop you, but that's not the aim of the swap, so you shouldn't expect to receive one in return.

1 comment:

Sherry said...

Wow! teeny tiny is right! What a piece! (or pieces!)