Rainbow Mini Swap Finish

Now that my partner has received her mini quilt, I will share with you my design process for this mini quilt. I’m not sure if the instagram quilting community is just exploding with swap activity, or that I am just more aware of it, but this was my second instagram swap and I have two more coming up.

I was stumped for a while on what to choose for this mini quilt, and I ordered a bunch new fabric but didn’t use much of it, then decided to go with a pattern from the Little Quilts book (Sarah Fielke and Amy Lobsiger). I didn’t get a “like” or comment on my picture of the fabric pull, but my partner had commented favourably on a similar design by someone else, so I continued along.

Pattern is Drawn Together

The actual piecing didn’t take too long, I had debated on doing a scrappy low volume background then picked this print, Cuneiform by Katarina Roccella for all the background. For each section, I placed the darkest value print in the center, then the lightest, and the medium for the outer ring. I was pleased with the final effect and chose the plain Kona coal to frame the star and not draw attention away from the center (plus it was a lot faster than my original thought of a pieced border).

I wanted to match the quilting threads to the fabrics, and fortunately we were about to have a week away, so I decided I would hand quilt this mini. Mostly by just outlining and echoing the shapes of the pieces. The triangles in the border are the colours of the rainbow as well. I made a triangle template of cardboard and then just drew a dot at each apex using a frixion pen. I don’t trust the frixion pens not to leave a shiny mark, so I figured the dot would be less obtrusive.

When it came time to bind the mini, I decided my original idea of more Kona coal just wasn’t right, so I picked out some Kona ash. I love photos framed in neutral colours too.  Finally I added hanging pockets in all 4 corners (so any way can be up) and used one for the label too.

I love the challenge of these swaps, yet they are stressful too to make something based on a few lines in the swap questionnaire.  For myself, there are so many fabulous makers, I know I would be happy with whatever I receive, and I always say for the maker to put something of herself (himself) into the process.  Go for it!–so I get something of you to enjoy every day.  I hope my partners all feel the same.

As a nod to the tradition of hand quilting, I am linking up to Le Challenge. Also to my friend Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Bee Social, TGIFF with Quilt Matters, and Pet Project at Pink Doxies (see buttons on side bar).

Tags: instagram, mini, quilt, rainbow, rainbowminiswap, swap