Pivot - Ta Da!

I finally named this little quilt Pivot. She is 20" square. I made her for the Lethbridge Modern Quilt Guild modern mini quilt paint chip challenge. We are hoping that maybe we can hang our quilts together in public somewhere soon. Once I find my paint chips again I will come back and add a photo here of them. They are grey, creamy white and orange.



Of course, I left this project to the last minute. Our guild meets on first Tuesday night of the month. So I started on Monday night. Luckily I had thought a lot about what I wanted to make so I was able to get right to work. I had made a block very similar to this for Stephanie in Bee Sewcial and I took this opportunity to make a similar one. Next time I will try for about 60' square.

This pieces for the top were cut without a ruler. I did keep my ruler nearby to help me stay straight-ish rather than veering off to the side too much. Each of the fabrics I used were left overs - scraps I guess - and I did not have any extra, so I wanted to avoid too many totally unusable cuts.

I have to say that I am in love with the combination of thin not straight lines and the creamy white and light grey to make the. I admit to choosing my paint chips with this plan in mind.



I started quilting Pivot that same night but it was late and I was tired. I used a variegated orange Star thread for the triangle and a variegated grey Aurifil thread for the stripes. The quilting is dense not straight lines, unevenly spaced. I used my domestic machine because, perhaps surprisingly, it is very challenging to quilt lines on the diagonal on the long arm and easy to do on the domestic. I got up early and quilted before work and took a couple of coffee breaks and finished the quilting at lunch.



My guild is hoping to hang these quilts in a show and I knew I wanted to wash the quilt for the added texture that would add. So the quilt was larger than 20" - by about 3" on each side. Also since I knew I was not going to have time to wash it after it was bound and still take it to the guild meeting, so I washed it before I bound it. I trimmed off the extra backing and batting and zig zag stitched the edges before throwing the quilt in the washer and dryer. Luckily I was working from home that day.



I'm not sure everyone knows how mini quilts come out of the washer and dryer so I took this photo. I then steamed her flat. I did not press the iron down much as I steamed the quilt as I wanted to keep the texture. I let the quilt rest for a bit and then I trimmed it to 20" square.



I added a white binding to match the stripes. I did not want the binding to steal the show and if I had had more time I might have used a faced binding instead. Here is the back which is a fabric that I thought complimented the quilt nicely. I used a single fold binding (tutorial here) and hand stitched her after work.

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I shared all these photos except the top one on instagram as I went. Pivot was finished in time for my guild meeting, the last binding stitch went in 30 minutes before I had to leave. 

I am going to share her about the internet, I really love this little quilt. I am linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It up Friday.

I've also linked up at Fabric Tuesday.

Best,

Leanne