Rainbow Blossoms Mini

Woohoo - I have a finished quilt to share with you today!  This is another one on my FAL Q2 list (here).

 

I started this quilt when I made my #igminiswap quilt - I knew I was going to love it and wanted one the same for myself.  This mini is almost identical to the first one, but I decided to mix things up a little bit by using a slightly different fabric for the binding, and also quilting it differently.

The coloured fabrics are printed by Karen Lewis Textiles - I really love how special and unique these hand printed fabrics are.

 

I've been enjoying cross-hatch quilting lately and particularly organic cross-hatch quilting.  You can see on this mini that my lines are roughly evenly spaced, but they are not particularly straight or perfectly evenly spaced.  It's so quick and simple to do, and, like all cross-hatch quilting, gives great texture without being distracting.

I really couldn't resist putting something pretty on the back - I bought this Suzuko Koseki print from Stitchbird (you can find it here).

 

I wanted the stitching to be a little more visible on this mini so I used Aurifil 40 weight thread in my absolute favourite colour (2021).  It's the best off-white and I have it in every weight.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the cats are super respectful of the hard work that goes into making a mini quilt like this, with all those tiny pieces.  Ralph thinks its just the perfect place to plonk his little butt.

Hey - my finish today conveniently matches the 2015 FAL button!  How are you guys going with your Q2 lists?

#igminiswap

I haven't been swapping much this year, but when I saw heaps of my online quilting buddies signing up to the #igminiswap being run on instagram, I couldn't resist.  It's being run by Sandy aka @curly_boy1, and the mailing deadline for international participants (i.e., me) is coming up soon.

This is the mini quilt I've made for my partner.  I wanted to use some of the very special handprinted fabrics I got from Karen Lewis Textiles (formerly Blueberry Park).

This log cabin variation, which uses wide logs and narrow logs (which are half the width of the wide logs), is something I've been wanting to play with as well.  I know my partner likes a low volume background, so it seemed like the perfect way to let the hand printed fabrics shine.

Hopefully this doesn't give the game away, but my swap partner has some mad machine quilting skills, so I decided to take the complete opposite approach and hand quilt this mini.  I've been enjoying hand quilting a larger quilt but it's taking FOREVER, so it was nice to have a quicker hand quilting project!  I used Aurifil 12 weight thread in white (2024) and I love the effect.  I actually bought a box of assorted 12 weight threads (this one) because I see more hand quilting in my future.

I bought a cute "made with love" stamp from Typo a couple of months ago, and I've been waiting for the chance to use it.  I used permanent fabric ink with the stamp and then added my own name and my partner's name (edited out in these photos) with a fabric marker.  The hand-worked blanket stitch is kind of my label signature now.

I had a few scraps left over from cutting the logs for my mini quilt, so I decided to use them to make a cute little pouch to go with the mini.

I'm not sending the threads but they just looked so pretty with the colours of the pouch!

 

My partner can use this pouch for whatever she likes.  But, it does fit lots of threads!

 

As usual, I used the open wide pouch tutorial, but made a fairly random size (basically the size my scrappy panels came out) and didn't box the corners.  I quilted the pieced exterior to a scrap of batting to give the pouch a bit of body without having to use interfacing (I hate interfacing so much!).

I'm really happy with how this mini turned out, and I enjoyed making it.  I really hope my partner likes it!

Have you been making things to swap lately?

Quilt Stats 

Pattern: I think this is a traditional block, but I did the quilt math myself

Finished Size: 18" by 18"  

Fabric: various low volume fabrics, Pretty Potent Co-ordinating Solids Fat Quarter bundle, printed by Karen Lewis Textiles

Backing: Ephemera

Binding: Print from Lotta Jansdotter's Sylvia line

Pieced and quilted by: me