It's a pantone finish !!

Meet my newest mini quilt - Pixelated Purple Heart !

I decided to join in the Pantone Radiant Orchid challenge as I have quite a few purples in my stash - originally I made another small quilt for the challenge but I ran out of a fabric and I'm having issues trying to replace it - but that's a story for another day!

On Monday I saw a photo by @thatswhatlindseymade on Instagram and immediately thought of doing the pixelated heart but as a mini - I just reduced the size of the squares from 5 inches to 1 inch!

 By Wednesday night the top was pieced 

on Thursday night I sat at my machine for a wonderfully therapeutic matchstick quilting session - the mini is 15 inches square - it took around 3 hours to quilt and with stitching about a 1/8 inch apart its got around 20,000 quilting stitches ! love that my sewing machine counts the stitches for me !

I wasn’t sure about using the dark thread on the background but decided to just do it and I’m really happy with how it turned out !

and it took me a little while to work out that I could just move the needle over rather than cut threads at the end of each line !!

I finished off the binding earlier today.

Quilt Stats
size: 15” square
pattern: Pixelated Heart – free pattern from Robert Kaufman
top fabrics: various prints and solids from my stash – Kona Snow background
backing fabric: Art Gallery Fabrics – Oval Elements in Prune
binding fabric: Kona Snow
batting: Warm and White cotton

quilting: matchstick straight line by me
thread: King Tut #948 by Superior Threads

The challenge was organised by Adrianne over at On the Windy Side and Anne at Play Crafts and its been fabulous to see the different quilts being made over at the flickr page

I’m so glad to have made the challenge deadline and I’d best be off to upload the link - it closes soon ! 

** edited to add that I missed out on getting my link on the challenge page - I've had issues my laptop and the internet most of the day which is a bit of a bummer (must learn how to do a blog post and add photos on my ipad) but at least I have a sweet mini for my wall :) ** 

a lovely year of finishes

2013 was supposed to be my UFO busting year but unfortunately it didn't happen like that - way too many shiny new things to distract me !

I did get one or two UFOs off my very long list but I haven't really put a dent in.

This year I'm a bit more determined - I think the new sewing machine and a confidence that I can machine quilt is helping !

So I decided I'd join in A Lovely Year of Finishes again this year - its a one finish a month project and here we are in March and I'm only just getting started - oh well, at least its a start.

I'm going to list smaller or almost finished projects on my monthly ALYoF lists so that I might actually get some finishes !  For my March project I'm going to list a cushion that I promised my mum I'd make for her over Christmas and I haven't even started yet - I did order a little fabric for the background and backing which has arrived and now I need to get on and make it !

Mum fell in love with this cushion I made for the Christmas Pillow Talk Swap at the end of last year (not sure that I've even done a post with that finished pillow!) and I said I'd be happy to make her one too !

Our local agricultural show is on next weekend - that's about 10 days - and I'm going to challenge myself to get this cushion done so that I can enter it into the show and  then send it to mum - people who know that I quilt often ask why I don't put things in the annual show - I'm not sure non-quilters understand the UFO list!
 

A Lovely Year of Finishes is run over at Fiber of All Sorts and Sew Bitter Sweet Designs and you can join in by linking up a project in the first seven days of the month and link up your finished project in the last seven days of that month - they have some wonderful link-up prizes so that's an added bonus to your finished project !