Two Mini-quilts

A pretty fabric bundle arrived on my doorstep recently, containing two new Riley Blake lines: 'Fancy & Fabulous' by Fancy Pants Designs, and 'Chatsworth' by Emily Taylor. This was a surprise bundle courtesy of Millhouse Collections, our local Riley Blake distributor here in Australia. So when I opened the parcel I thought it was all one line! Don't the colours complement each other really well? (that's Fancy & Fabulous on the left and Chatsworth on the right).

As the fabrics worked so well with each other I decided to make two coordinating mini quilts to hang next to each other on my mini-wall. I chose patterns from two very talented Australian quilters (and whom I am proud to call friends, even though we've never met in real life as they live in different states): Jemima from Tied With A Ribbon and Peta from She Quilts A Lot.

For the first mini I used 'Fancy & Fabulous' and Jemima's Kaleidoscope pattern, which is a foundation paper piecing pattern.

I was a foundation paper piecing virgin before this mini, but the pattern seemed clear enough and I thought 'how hard can it be?'. Very hard as it turns out, if you don't read the pattern carefully. So after getting myself all confuzzled for an hour or so and wasting way too much fabric doing trial-and-error, I finally figured out the mistake I was making. Once the penny dropped and the technique 'clicked' it was super easy.

Pretty satisfied with the accuracy of my points considering it was my first time doing foundation paper piecing (don't look too closely!). No wonder so many quilters around the world love this technique so much. I am so glad I learnt how to do it as I will be using FPP for some of my Farmer's Wife quilt blocks soon.

For my second mini I used 'Chatsworth' and Peta's pretty mini quilt pattern, 'Down South'. My seam ripper got a bit of a workout during the making of this mini (see how teeny tiny those pinwheels are!) It was worth the extra care though and I am very pleased with the result. Peta also has a full size quilt version of this pattern in her online store.

Two wonderful additions to my mini-wall! Thank you Jemima, Peta, Millhouse Collections, and Riley Blake Designs!