Flame Seeker Mini Quilt (Alison Glass Swap)

I’ve cut down on swaps in the last year or two, but there’s always one or two that I can’t resist, and the latest Alison Glass-themed swap on Instagram was one of those. I love her fabrics and all the lovely combinations of bright, saturated colors, and got right to work. One of the things my partner included in her inspiration mosaic was the new Flame Seeker mini quilt pattern by Nicole of Lillyella.

I have a pretty sizeable stash of Alison Glass fabrics, so it was easy to pick and choose colors and patterns that fit with my partner’s preference for cooler colors like blues, greens and purples. I did throw in a few bits of pink to highlight certain areas, but I think that will be acceptable!

The pattern is foundation paper pieced (absolutely necessary to get all those small pieces and points done correctly) and it’s definitely not for beginners unless you’re just totally fearless. There are a lot of small pieces, and more than a dozen sections to then piece together. Even with the precision allowed by paper piecing, lining up all the points in the moth’s body and wings was tricky. The good news is that the pattern is really well written and provides a lot of guidance for which points to really focus on! Those tips were very helpful, and I was extremely pleased with how well all my pieces lined up on my finished top.

The backing is more Alison Glass, and I quilted the mini with freeform curvy lines running from top to bottom. This is a really simple, easy quilting motif that I’ve used many times before, andI’m always happy with the result! I used invisible thread on the top so that the piecing really stands out, and gray thread on the back. I tried blue thread on the back, but even after messing with my machine’s tension, I could see tiny dots of blue showing on the white/gray background of the front so I switched to something that would blend in!