"Choose Happy" is the name of this mini quilt. I originally intended this as a "bullet journal" quilt. I journaled a lot as a young mother, and I inherited my mother many yearly journals (that I love reading!), so although journaling is the new, trendy thing to do, it is not new to me. This year I purchased a few notebooks and The Quilters Planner for 2018 and have begun documenting my days - the weather, gardening, baking, quilting, and everyday things too. I had intended to design a quilt that looks like a bullet journal, representing the page of a journal with lines and bullets, but after this main part was completed I struggled with a design to go around it, so it became a mini quilt that will hang in my sewing room to inspire me.
The three appliques represent my main "bullets" - Heart and Home (family and baking!), Garden, and Quilts. I had fun fussy-cutting these from Moda's selvedge fabric "Celebrating 40 Years".
The back is a Bird Dot, a grunge-ish fabric by Carrie Bloomston and one of my all-time favorite fabrics.
I had a charm pack of Garden Project and also ordered some yardage of it. I love the colors and farm-y vibe to it!
This piece was sewn and quilted on my new previously owned Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700QCP. I found the machine on Facebook Marketplace. It was sold by a gal that worked in a quilt shop that sells Bernina, so she "upgraded" to a new Bernina and wanted her Janome to find a good home! I got it for a really great price, and it included all the attachments; plus a $600 table came with it! It is a definite step up from my Janome DC3050 purchased in 2010, but I will keep that one around to take to classes.
In addition to machine quilting part of the quilt, I actually got brave enough to try some free motion quilting on it. Although I still need a lot of FMQ practice, I was very impressed with how much easier it is on my new machine.
Here are the details:
Choose Happy Mini Quilt
Finished size: 28 inches x 28 inches
Fabrics
Grunge by Moda - Pool, Moutarde, and unknown red
Garden Project by Moda - charm pack and yardage
French Farmhouse by Andover - background
Celebrating 40 Years selvedge fabric by Moda
Binding - Hobby Lobby Nature Bounty in Terra
Backing
Windham's Bird Dot by Carrie Bloomston
Thread
Superior Threads #50 - Genoa Gray, Indian Paintbrush
Superior Threads Trilobal Polyester - Pacific Blue
Aurifil 80 wt - Pale Yellow
Quilting
Machine and free motion
