This was my second year participating in the Modern Quilt Guild’s mini quilt swap, and like last year, I was able to swap with my partner in person at QuiltCon! Elizabeth gave me a ton of leeway in my design, so I decided to embrace her love of color and strips by making a colorful jewel mini!
The pattern is Kool Thing by Libs Elliott. This is the mini size, which features a single block and finishes at 20″ square. I had a lot of fun pulling solids from my stash — I don’t even know what they all are, but it was a mix of Kona Cotton and Michael Miller’s Cotton Couture. The sides are a black and white stripe that I picked up at It Seams to Be Sew the last time I was there renting time on their longarm. I had a lot of fun cutting those pieces juuuust right, so that they’d end up with the stripes all pointing inward.
I quilted it simply with straight lines using Aurifil 50 wt white thread, forming an X in the middle and then echoing that shape out to each edge. I’ve done this same quilting pattern on a couple other pieces in that past and I’m always please with how simple but graphic it can be! I didn’t want to break up the striped edges, and I knew that even if I used the striped fabric for binding I’d never get the stripes to line up exactly.
So I chose to do a striped facing instead! This is the second facing I’ve done (this was the first) and I am finding that I really enjoy this alternate finishing technique. I’m sure I will use it again soon.
It was so much fun to make this mini and gift it to Elizabeth in Nashville. In exchange, I got the lovely striped mini you can see above, using blue Carolyn Friedlander fabrics (always a fave) and featuring the same striped piecing that was in the quilt she had in the show!
What awesome placement of the striped print around the edges, and facing was a great choice to finish the mini! Looks like a fun swap. 🙂
Love this mini. The quilting and color placement are great. I have never tried the facing technique but will have to give it a try.
You definitely should! I have started to see a lot more facings on quilts in the last year or so. It’s a neat and easy way to let the quilt top design go all the way to the edge for those times when binding would interrupt the flow of the design. I also think it’s fun to use a bright or contrasting fabric, since it’s not seen from the front but can add some fun to the back. 🙂