Birch Tree shimmer mini quilt

Hey there! Welcome to my stop on Jennifer Sampou's Shimmer blog hop!

You know, once upon a time, I thought I would never like metallic fabrics. But I also once thought I would never wear skinny jeans and never get tired of chevron prints. Never say never in fashion or quilting, friends. 😂 Metallics are totally on trend these days, and I'm loving them. Jennifer Sampou's new fabric line for Robert Kaufman, Shimmer, is metallics done right!

Maybe it's the long, cold winter we've had here in Wisconsin, or maybe it's just the repeated viewings of the movie "Frozen" with my daughters, but when I saw the Shimmer line, I immediately thought of white on silver. A quick scan of my Pinterest inspiration boards led me to this lovely, minimal graphic composition, and suddenly I knew just what I wanted to do!

So I made this little birch tree mini quilt. It may seem an odd project for me to whip up at a time when winter is finally releasing its icy grip on my 'hood, but I guess this is my way of bidding the season goodbye. The trees were very easy to piece improvisationally—I cut a large background square of silver Shimmer fabric and then slashed through it on angles to place the tree trunks. Ditto for the birch bark notches, with more Shimmer pieced into to those.It was only when I was piecing the third and final tree that it hit me—what is the perfect counterpoint to a birch tree in the snow? Why, a cardinal sitting in its branches, of course! Even though the quilt was already almost done at that point, suddenly I had to have a cardinal.

I wanted the cardinal to be just a small accent, which meant I needed a relatively simple paper-pieced block, so that it was doable when reduced way down. I printed the templates at 30% size. Crazy small, but sure enough, it worked! I love itty bitty paper-piecing! The beauty of it is that you can do paper-piecing this small, and it's just as easy as when it's normal sized.

I finished my mini off with more Shimmer prints on the back and for the binding, plus some wavy line quilting. But I think the luster of the silver background print is really what makes this mini special. It shines. Literally.

Keep following the blog hop for more inspiration using this fabric line!

April 1:Robert Kaufman/Jennifer Sampou

April 2:Janice Ryan- Better off Thread

April 3:Alissa Haight Carlton- Handmade by Alissa

April 4:Julie Herman- JayBird Quilts

April 5:Natalie Barnes- Beyond the Reef

April 6:Stash Books- C&T Publishing

April 7:Amanda Jean Nyberg- Crazy Mom Quilts

April 8: Me! You are here

April 9:Cheryl Arkinson- Naptime Quilter

April 10:Christina Cameli- A Few Scraps

April 11:Elizabeth Hartman- Oh Fransson