Underground Railroad Mini

I am linking up with Needlework Tuesday

My Underground RR mini top is pieced and I thought my experience was a good opportunity to talk a bit more about some of the challenges of piecing minis.

I wanted to give an idea of just how tiny these pieces are, 1" and 1.25"……….

 I knew that my Pfaff 1/4" foot was a scant 1/4", and sewing this mini indicates that it is just one thread short of 1/4", which seems unimportant, but when you multiply that by 5 seams it becomes 10 threads and that adds up to about 1/4". This is not an issue over an 8" or 9" block but over 3" it matters-a lot. Consequently I decided to make a second Shoofly block or as you can see I would have lost all the points in trimming this one down to the necessary 3.5".

The pic below is not a very good example, but I found that when I sit directly in front of the machine if I allow one thread to show to right of my presser foot I get a very accurate 1/4" seam.

 Below are the FG for the North Star block……….

 and here are the rest of the pieces pictured with a one cent coin to show relative size.

 The star on the right will fit into the center of the star on the left…………..

just so!

Tada! 

The itty bitty quilt top is pieced ready for quilting, it measures 16"x19".

You can see that the second Shoofly block, one row up from the bottom on the right, has all its points perfect and I am happy that I made the effort to do it over!