Mini Quilt and Pay it Forward

Where has this month gone? It seems to be flying by and I can't believe it's two weeks since I last blogged. Last weekend was pretty busy with a family trip to see the Strictly Come Dancing Roadshow - Fab-U-Lous! I also went to colloege on Sunday. Then of course work most of the week but with time for coffee,  lunch and tea with friends on different days . This weekend is my first 'free' one this year so I've been having a little playtime (see photo) - more on that later.

I had a lovely surprise earlier in the week when I got an email from the 'Vegetarian Hunter' to say she had nominated me for a Liebsters blog award. She posted about it on her blog: http://veggiehunter.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-surprise.html. 
Thank you Carolyn!

Now I have to nominate some of my favourite blogs with fewer than 300 followers. I've had to think long and hard about this as so many of you out there inspire me! Well here goes:

First Quilt Times my friend QuiltSue has a great sense of humour and organises a Christmas Quiltalong which helped me complete several Christmas projects last year.

Second: A Quilters Journal Janet was one of the quilters (with QuiltSue) who persuaded me to try blogging and changed my life!!

Next Quilting Prolifically  Trudi makes an amazing number of quilts, postcards and other items.

Finally Mamacjt I love Carol's bright and cheerful quilts and her lovely bird pictures. It was she who inspired me to make my mini art quilt yesterday!

I could add a whole load more blogs but I'd better stop there! Sorry I couldn't include you all!

So onto my mini quilt. I'd read about colouring on cloth with wax crayons on Mamcjt and decided to have a go. Carol had posted a little while ago about colouring mandalas so first I did a little circular doodling:

This was fun but as I moved onto the dining table to draw some more circles this caught my eye:

A coaster with a lovely simple design! So here's a little tutorial for a really quick and easy project:

1. Cut a piece of freezer paper to A4 (letter) size and iron onto white fabric.

2. Take a plate or bowl  and place over the edge of the fabric, draw a curve with a sharp pencil (click on the photos to see a larger view:

Move the bowl slightly and draw a second line, repeat to draw a third line. Draw groups of 3 lines on 3 sides of the fabric:

3. Using wax crayons colour the fabric:

4. Cover the coloured  fabric with another piece of cloth and iron to set the wax. When you can smell the wax it should be done!

5. Remove the freezer paper then layer and quilt. I just used my walking foot and a dark thread to outline the shapes then used white thread to echo quilt. Of course you could free motion stitch in the background like Carol does on her fantastic pictures here

Here's a close up of my finished design:

You can see the wax shows the texture of the weave on the cotton where I've coloured lightly. In areas I coloured more heavily this doesn't show so much. I'd like to try it on a smoother cotton sheeting. I was also thinking of other 'what ifs': What if I use different sized circles or different shaped objects such as our square-ish plates or the oval ice-cream container, what if I use more or less than 3 lines in a group ...... I'm sure you can think of other variations too!

If you have young children or grandchildren this would be a really fun project for them - just get them to draw and colour a picture on freezer paper backed cloth and then quilt to make a table mat or cushion!

Let me know if you have a go - I'd love to see your ideas.