Modern Mini Challenge

After a long debate with myself I’ve decided to enter my ‘Starflower’ mini quilt into the Modern Mini Challenge hosted by Ellison Lane Quilts. This little quilt is 18″ x 18″ and was made for the Doll Quilt Swap Round 13.

StarflowerI found a drawing of the ‘flower’ on the internet but couldn’t find either who had designed it nor a pattern for it so I sat down and started to draw out the pieces on a big piece of paper. The flower is English paper pieced and then appliquéd onto the white linen background. I then quilted it with some Aurifil 50wt by echoing the shape on the background and the centre and some stitch in the ditch between the pink and purple shapes.

The binding is slightly wider, finishing at about half an inch. I thought a border would be too distracting but liked the idea of using all the fabrics in the scrappy binding.

This was the first EPP patten I ‘designed’ and it was quite a challenge to get all the pieces to fit together and lay flat. It was quite a steep learning curve but helped me a lot with designing my next EPP mini, Athea. You could say this was the start to my obsession with designing EPP patterns. There’s another one in the works as I’m typing this.

Edited to add: I found the pattern, Girih Tiles by Endulzar, on Craftsy. If you would like to make this beautiful mini quilt you can buy the pattern here for $1.95. Although I drew my own templates for this mini I have now bought the pattern as I do not want to cheat this talented designer.  

 

 

FLiRTS

A while ago I joined FLiRTS, a fun little swap on flickr. However, when the first round kicked off I couldn’t sign up as I had too much going on to properly concentrate on it. Round two came around and I signed up. I was so excited about it all and didn’t think life was going to be quite as busy as it got. So although I haven’t been able to comment on all the pictures as I normally do when I join a swap, I’ve been busy making a few things for my partner. I like this swap as you pick three things from a list of makes and your partner then choses one of these items to make for you.

My partner had some great things on her wish list and I decided to go for a mug rug. As I knew I wouldn’t have that much time to spend but wanted it to look good and be fun I went for foundation paper piecing two different blocks. First, the tea pot that I found in Fat Quarterly number 8. It was desigend by Kerry Green from verykerryberry and I’m sure that I will make it again. It was really fun to do and I love the colours I used.

Tea PotI hand quilted around the teapot and on the tablecloth with some Aurifil 28wt. Once I finished the piecing I thought ‘what if this girl prefers coffee?’. Around about then I won a giveaway on Kerry’s blog and the prize was the Parisienne Cafe pattern by Sew-Ichigo. So I made the coffee cups and put them on the back of the teapot mug rug.

Espresso

I also bought a blue and white mug to go with the mug rug, added some scraps and made a grocery bag (which was also on my partner’s list).

Grocery BagAll these things are now on the way to…. ha, ha, ha, it’s a secret swap so I won’t tell you until I know they’ve arrived.

Let me show you, however, what came for me all the way from the United States of America:

FLiRTS Goodies from DawnI couldn’t remember what three things I had put on my list but it seems Dawn (2mayboys on flickr) decided to make all of them! First up the greatest Kindle case ever. I love Denyse Schmidt fabrics and the colours are just so spot on. I really could not have wished for anything better. It even has a pocket on the inside for the charging cable. However, Dawn also made me the cutest coasters in my favourite colours and from some of my most favourite fabrics. To top it all off she made me a little pencil case and sent me a mini charm pack of Boho. Gosh, I really have been spoilt and I can tell you this little package has made my day, my week, my month. Thank you so much, Dawn!