Mini Keepsake Quilt-Along ~ Passage Quilting™ Tutorial ~ Part 3

In Part 2 of the Mini Keepsake Quilt-Along, improvised sections in all shapes and sizes were pieced and set aside. Now it is time to take those seemingly mismatched sections and begin fitting them together like pieces of a puzzle.

Tips for Joining Improvised Sections

• Lay out all of the improvised sections on a floor or a work wall.
• Look for natural fits in shape.
• Look for places where values and colors bleed between sections, blurring the seam lines between two sections.
• Use a log cabin type construction to avoid inset seams.
• When fitting two sections together if one is shorter than the other add a filler to the short section to make it even with the longer section before piecing the two sections together.
• Likewise trim off a longer section to fit a shorter section.
• Continue joining and building sections to reach the target size of the finished quilt.
• Create a filler fabric by piecing strips together from all the materials in the quilt.

[slickr-flickr tag="mq3" size="m640" sort="description"]

Tips on Basting, Binding, Quilting, Finishing

• Baste with safety pins.
• Mark quilting lines with chalk free hand. Echo a simple pattern. Here I used an undulating wave pattern.
• Hand quilt with pearl cotton and an embroidery needle.
• Quilt with big, or sashiko style stitches.
• Try a simple fold over binding or create bias binding from scraps of extra clothing. Ties are great for bindings because they are already cut on the bias.

I hope you enjoyed this quilt-along, a basic Passage Quilting™ tutorial, and found it helpful. You can also find guidelines for making your very own Mini Keepsake Quilt in Whip Up Mini Quilts, along with all the basic instructions for finishing your quilt.

Any questions about the process? Did you present your keepsake quilt to someone special or share it with family and friends? How was it received? Share an image of your quilt in the keepsake/bereavement quilt group on flickr.