Mini Quilt Madness

After a decent nap this morning (thanks hubby) I have managed to get some blogging mojo back, and tell you about my latest little project - the mini quilt. Hopefully I'll just manage to get this post sorted in time to link up to the modern mini quilt challenge over at Ellison Lane.

Like many other things, this has been festering for a while. The issue is this ridiculously expensive wallpaper we purchased for Princess.  

$ $ $

It is yet to go up in her room (just one wall - you'll have to bear with me if you're a feature wall hater, but it is too crazy for a whole room) and I had visions of finding matching peacock bits and pieces to tie the paper into her room. Alas, pink peacock accessories are not a dime a dozen. But, you say - why don't you make her a mini-quilt for her wall?  What a great idea my quilty friends!  Okay then. 

I decided I didn't really like the peacock in the wallpaper, so I changed him up a bit and drew a few sketches for some ideas. I made a quilt background out of 2" squares with a border - sort of a picture frame. And then I got hacking into the scraps from my lattice quilt and ironing with fusible web.  To cut a long story short, here are the progress shots.

It doesn't help that the iron leaks.  *sigh*

Half way through the ironing.  Fiddly. And not really in a good way. 

Aggghh - I can't see.  Where's my eye?

Started sketchy quilting. A first for me. Not awesome at it, but not too bad either. The yellow is my chalk lines for the whirly swirly bits. 

Still blind.  Will you just sort it out?

Finished sketchy quilting. Well except for around the feather dots and a bit more for the branch - I decided it didn't look thick enough to support a peacock!

Finally.

I decided to straight line quilt around the black border, to emphasise the picture frame. But then I decided it needed more colour. Enter the hot pink border. This was a 1" strip, ironed in half - and then stitched around the edge. A bit like piping, really. And then I machined bound in the usual way. 

I'm so pretty, pretty.

Ta dah!  One mini quilt approximately 15 x 15". 

I totally forgot to put the hanging sleeve on, after thinking a million times 'I mustn't forget the hanging sleeve'. 

*Dramatic sigh* 

But I can do that later. 

Angle shot.  Ooooh.

I might attack it with a little hot pink embroidery. I shall ponder this further!  This was an interesting experience. The sketchy quilting was quite fun, but in my view not really suitable for bed quilts. I don't think the appliqué would handle being washed too often. 

So what do you think?  Princess was quick to claim it!  But next time I would spend more time thinking through the design. Maybe a bigger peacock. Hmmmmm.  

And just so you know how awesome and organised I was during this wee project, here is an action shot of the dining room table. Jealous?

Ka-boom.  Quilting explosion.

Not really, right?!

Linking up to Sew Darn Crafty at Sew Many Ways and Charm about You for the Lets Get Acquainted Monday link up.