A little gift for a blog friend

I love how quilting brings together people from different parts of the world.
Over the past few years I have followed many quilting blogs and feel attached to many quilters whom I know I will very probably not meet in person.  We do, however, have "conversations" via email and their blogs so, in a weird way, I feel I "know" them, am interested in their projects and what is going on in their worlds.

So, as a little "Thank you" to a lady whose work and zany humour I very much admire, I sent a little gift:

and the other side.................

 

I added a little hand stitching and pretty buttons for embellishment.

 

Inside I popped a few of my 3" 9 patches.

Practice makes perfect

Over the years I have been quilting I have made loads of 9Patch blocks, usually using separate 2.5" squares as I always have a supply of these on hand, cut from small scraps.

eg in my numerous Wonky Wishes star quilt and blocks:

I have already used the strip method of dark, light, dark matched with light, dark, light but again I think I have usually used 2.5" strips to make those 9Patches.

I was looking at Cathy's Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog and admired the tiny 3" finished 9Patches she made from 1.5" strips.  She describes in detail how to make these in a tab (HELP WANTED!!! (39P Swap) at the top her blog.
As I have a lot of thinner scrap strips I decided to give it a go. I am not the most accurate of sewers so found this exercise quite challenging.  But I persevered and am amassing a collection of finished tiny 9Patches.

Finished earlier this week:

Completed 9Patches in piles (2, 3, 4 or more of each colourway)

Today I sewed already cut strips together, number of finished blocks I cut make depended on the length of strips I had:

These were sub cut into 1.3" pieces:

And then assembled into 9Patches:

No plan to use them yet, so I'll squirrel them away until a suitable project pops into my head.

I thought I could use them as corner stones in borders, or even to make a quilt border.

Or alternate them with solid coloured patches.  We'll see.

Now off to make some more 5" String blocks which will be a nice change from being so precise!!

However I do think the old adage "Practice makes perfect" is right..............  in my case I think I am getting better, certainly not perfect!