Shrinking heart

The heart mini quilt is all done and off to its new home with newlyweds. It's amazing how it shrinks from the first step with 3.5" squares to the end when you sew back together the 2.25" squares cut out with the template. But the result is oh so lovely!

I quilted it rather densely in a cross-hatch - taking quite some time at the machine even though the quilt is rather small. I think the effect is nice because it really softens stark reds and blacks. Plus I love the waffle-effect on the expanse of white background.

Up parasol!

Last weekend was quilting serendipity for me. Friends came to visit, bringing with them a lovely FQ bundle of Heather Bailey's Up Parasol as a thank-you. Then I stumbled on a quilt-along being hosted by Gnome Angel and the mini pattern she picked called for nine fabrics - just like in my bundle! Fabric fate!

With a two-week timeline for the quilt-along, I soon got cutting. I decided to change the pattern a bit to preserve the lovely birds, and then I figured I'd do the same for the flowers. Today I finished piecing the top and I love how it turned out. The fabrics are so bright and cheery and the birds are perfect.

I heart this quilt

A co-worker got married last weekend and a few days before someone mentioned her colours were white, red and black. Immediately my thought was that would make an amazing quilt. A quick Google search later and I found this tutorial for a twisting heart quilt. Nifty!

Red and black aren't colours I use often, so I dipped into my mom's abundant stash. When I showed her the pattern, she also had the template! I was just gonna make my own with paper, but boy did that template make the cutting a lot easier.

I sewed together a big heart block, then started cutting out the squares. I've never done this technique before and it sure produces a complex looking quilt in quite a simple way.

The only downside is all the waste. But since I used scraps to start with, I wasn't too bothered.

And voila! A pinwheel heart ready to sew together again. As I said, these are not at all colours I would normally use, but I sure do love how this is turning out.

Meet my mini mini

Here's my latest finish in the Fresh Mini Quilt Club, called X Mark. I started with some very bright floral fabric I picked up not long ago on sale and paired it with a more muted solid. I love this pattern, although it is deceptively simple looking. I quilted it with straight lines, some intersecting and some in a v-shape. Out of necessity I switched from green to fuchsia thread when the green ran out. Dense straight-line quilting sure uses a lot of thread. But I think it looks nice with the pink, which is surprisingly subtle.

Then I got a little crazy and made a mini of my mini! I had a bunch of HSTs leftover from trimming the flying geese and it was too tempting to make smaller Xs. So here's my version of the original, only smaller. I quilted this one with circles, which was a bit dizzying with the psychedelic flowers.

And here they are together, a mini and its mini. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

A quilter lives here

My lovely Swoon mini was languishing on my craft table, rolled up and out of sight. The gears in my brain started turning and I thought of those magnetic door hangers from Lee Valley. I picked up two, hoping they'd be strong enough to hold layers of fabric and batting against a steel door. And boy are they!

Now my mini Swoon is hanging on my front door, declaring to all who pass that a quilter lives here. It's like the urban equivalent of barn quilts. I went back and got a few more, so now I can make use of the inside of my front door and garage door. Now the boring white doors have become mini quilt galleries!

Quilting in circles

Here's the second finish in my monthly mini quilt club with Canoe Ridge Creations. (It's July 1 and I woke up this morning wondering when the next pattern will pop into my inbox!)

I'm on the fence about my fabric choices for this one. They're all from the same collection so they obviously go together, but the pattern kinda gets lost in the busy prints and the almost-solid pink really stands out. Maybe another patterned fabric for the middle squares would have worked better. I dunno. What do you think? Looking at it now, part of my issue may be the pattern itself. The four identical blocks go against my natural inclination toward asymmetry.

The pattern is called Boxed In, which oddly made me think circle quilting was the perfect choice. Oh how I love how the quilting turned out!

I decided to put a few squares in the middle, echoing the four squares in the blocks. Then I just went round and round. Fun! And definitely a departure from my usual straight-line quilting. You can really see the concentric circles on the back, where I used a light green thread.

And the back is just a few pieced strips of leftover fabric.

Now to check again for this month's pattern!