Rain Rain Go Away Mini Quilt

This mini quilt was inspired by a suggestion by Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. I commented on one of her blog posts that I had more yellow and gray in my stash than anything else, and she said, "Sounds like you need to make a yellow and gray quilt!" And away I went!

With the frequent rain and clouds we had last month, it seemed a good choice to do a gradient quilt with yellows flowing into grays. Luckily, we finally got a sunny day for a photo!

I didn't end up using a lot of my yellows and grays, because I dug into my scraps. So a full-sized yellow and gray quilt is in the future!

I love gradient quilts and made my first in 2015 - you can read about it here and see it on the left in the photo above.

The back is a piece of Yuwa fabric I'd been saving for awhile, and it was perfect for this little project.

As always, Jack was quite vocal about wanting my attention throughout the process!

Here are the details:

Rain Rain Go Away Mini Quilt
Finished size: 20 inches x 20 inches

Fabrics
Scraps from my scrap stash
Binding - Grunge in Stone
Backing - Yuwa Suzuko Koseki Paris Yellow Dots

Thread
Superior Threads #50 - Genoa Gray

Quilting
Machine

Christmas in the Canyon Table Topper - A Gradient Quilt

Cindy of Live a Colorful Life recently blogged about a quilt that absolutely captured my imagination. She named it Christmas in the City, and it is gorgeous! I have reread her post and gazed at that quilt dozens of times {stalking!} Click on the picture of her quilt below to read her fascinating post on how it was made. She made blocks from Tula Pink's City Sampler: 100 modern blocks (I bought my own this week!)

Cindy's Quilt - Click on it to read her post!

I love the gradient style of the colors in her masterful arrangement and was inspired to try that method myself.

A table top seemed the perfect size to experiment with the gradient style. Although Cindy's quilt is composed of sampler blocks, mine is a simple block design. I had a long-saved Christmas-themed mini charm pack that I combined with low volume creams and off-whites. I positioned and re-positioned until I had an arrangement similar to Cindy's. I matched the pieced border to the color arrangement and added a dark red binding.

The result of the color composition reminds me of a river flowing through a canyon, so I quilted curvy lines with a metallic variegated thread on the "river" portion and straight lines with regular thread for the low volume "canyon sides".

I love the fabrics in this little mini quilt. Sadly I can no longer identify many of them. My favorite was a dark red with off-white snowflakes

I do still have the selvage on the backing, and it is Tonal Cream from Minick & Simpson's Lexington collection for Moda

Now for my shameful confession: I started this mini quilt with every intention of sending it to my sister-in-law for Christmas. But when I put it on my kitchen table this morning to photograph it with my Christmas glass, I knew it would never leave the house. I will (finally) finish quilting the Little Joys quilt for her (post to follow later this week), and she'll never know the difference.

Now I want to make more gradient quilts in different colors!