Modern Mini Quilt Challenge - Ballerina Girl

This is my entry for the Modern Mini Quilt Challenge. (Those of you who follow my blog have already seen this.) This is the first mini quilt I have sewn in years. I made this quilt on Saturday (June 8th) and finished up the fine details on Sunday. She is a year-end gift for my daughter's first ballet teacher but how handy that I finished her up during the Modern Mini Quilt Challenge.


This quilt was made with a pattern from believemagic that I won on the "Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day". The design of the girl's head and body are by the pattern designer Carrie Payne. I came up with the quilt idea after my daughter's last ballet class on Saturday when I was wanting to do something special for her teacher to give to her at the year-end performance. This quilt measures 12 x 18 inches.

I coloured the fabric of her face and arms with pencil crayons which was a new technique for me. I gave her a little blush to her cheeks from the exertion of her dancing and dark hair because the ballet teacher has dark hair. The ballerina fabric in the background was some that I got at a church fundraiser sale for $1.00 a metre! I got two metres for $2.00. It's actually called "Dance Class" so it is perfect. She is standing on a wooden dance floor that I made with scraps of binding from another project and quilted a wood grain onto. The border is quilted with little loops that I imagined are what the pirouettes would look like if they showed up on the floor. The little saying "Elle adore danser" is written in French because the teacher's first language is french. The binding is left over Pearl Bracelets from another quilt. Her legs are made with light pink fabric for her ballet tights and I embroidered the satin ballet slippers. I also sewed little pink glass beads on her skirt hem. I cut a tiny bit of crinoline from a dress-up tutu of my daugther's to add to the tutu on the quilt.



I embroidered a label for the back which took almost as long as it took to make the quilt. The label says who it was my by and who it was made for and has a message of thanks for the ballet teacher. I hope the teacher will love her gift from us. Thank you for stopping by to see my quilt.