A Pocket Full of (mini-charm) Posies

My youngest sister is getting married in three weeks (!!!) and I haven't started her quilt. I know there are lots of amazing quilters who could throw something together in a day, but I am not SO not there yet! But I did finally sit down and plan out her quilt -- sort of a modified coin quilt with floating blocks of color. Except... the fabric won't be here until Monday. That leaves me with less than three weeks/two weekends to get this thing done. YIKES!

So, what did I spend my time on this weekend? I did what any rational person facing an impossible deadline would do! I procrastinated by making a completely unnecessary and unrelated project. 

At our last trip to my LQS Baby Bee spotted a mini-charm pack of Aneela Hoey's Posy, and asked if we could make it into a blanket for "Silly Cat." I was all too happy to oblige. Seriously, I was beaming with mommy pride in the store. I decided to keep it simple and pieced this quilt top together Friday night. Basic patchwork like this is so relaxing and wonderful -- perfect after a stressful week at the office.  The mini-charm pack wasn't quite big enough for Silly Cat, so I floated the mini-charms on a field of white and added a generous border.

Posy mini-quilt top. 

 Maybe it was the simplistic quilt top, or the glass of wine I had, but I got brave with the quilting. I decided to venture out of my stippling-comfort-zone and add some wandering clovers. Aren't they sweet? I took Leah Day's "Free Motion Quilting a Sampler Quilt" on Craftsy, and this is the first of her patterns that I'm putting to use. 

Wandering clovers

Free motion quilting does not come easy to me. I really think it's grounded in drawing, a skill that I do NOT possess in the slightest. It took me *forever* to get my stippling even remotely passable, so adding these clovers was nothing short of terrifying. There are certainly clovers in the final quilt that I'm not proud of, but I don't think Silly Cat will complain much.

Nitey-night Silly Cat

I used a large scale print I had in my stash for the backing. It was an older print from the Leanika collection by FreeSpirit that I found at the Fabric Basement for $1.99/yd (!!). It's sort of on the ugly side, but it matched the top really well. And I love the periwinkle binding! Strangely enough I forgot to engage the dual feed on my Horizon, and it was my smoothest machine binding yet. Not sure if I'm getting better, or if the dual feed was working against me, but I'll be experimenting some there.

Most importantly, Baby Bee has been spending her mornings putting Silly Cat back to bed with his new blanket, *instead* of screaming at crying for us to come get her. What started out as a procrastination tactic has certainly turned into a brilliant investment. Who knew? :)