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

Choose Happy Mini Quilt

"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