"T" is for Trip

A mini trip around the world quilt. 

I've been wanting to make a miniature quilt for awhile now so I was sitting at a recent PTO meeting and I was inspired by the theme for our spring auction at school - Around the World.  I started thinking about table themes and what, if anything, I could contribute and then it came to me that I knew of the quilt pattern Trip Around the World and suddenly I knew what my mini quilt would be.  It was one of those 'Aha' moments. 

I love, love using up scrap fabric and I keep even the tiniest scraps so I wanted my squares to be as small as possible while still being able to machine piece them. 

Here's my bags of scraps:

 

I settled on 1" strips and starting cutting away with all my bright colors from the scrap bags. 

Here's all my 1" strips sorted, sort of, in this box: 

Looks like a candy store you just want to touch it right!

I made a pattern with the 5 colors I had chosen and just starting strip piecing and filling in as necessary.

I really wasn't sure about the final size but I did think big enough to fit the 18" doll bed just in case I decide to give it to a young lady.  Here a some strips sewn together:

Getting there but I'm thinking I'll go out further until the next red fabric makes a complete diamond. 

Here is the complete quilt sandwich: 

For the quilting I did a simple straight stitch through the diagonal of every other square. 

The backing is a simple printed white cotton:

With so many bright colors in the quilt it was really difficult to chose the binding but ultimately the red just won me over.

Do we like it tucked?

Or untucked:

Daybed style - looks like we definitely need another pillow there.

It really was simple and fast and I was able to use all scraps - love that.  Now do I let the girls play with it?