Rainbow Mini Swap

Hello! Today I would love to show you my Rainbow Mini Swap handmades that I mailed out this week. They are going via air mail to a country far far away and although I am sad to see them go I hope they will bring their new owner much joy.

Rainbow Hexagon Mini designed, English Paper Pieced by hand, machine appliqued and machine quilted by Anita LaHay of Daydreams of Quilts.

I coloured my design with pencil crayons on hexagonal graph paper before I started. That way I knew how much of each colour I needed. (But I made enough for four of these quilts hoping to make another for myself in the future.) I hand basted all my hexagons and then hand sewed them together into the design I had planned. (I had also hand traced and hand cut all the hexagon papers but that was a year ago during extreme boredom at work with nothing to do.)

A closer look. I machine quilted the mini in my Juki with a feathers motif.

I saved all the tiny off cuts from my hexagons and made a rag rug style mug rug.

Some of my Instagram friends wanted to know how I did this so in case you wish to know too I will tell you here. I got a piece of white fabric and cut it to mug rug size. I also layered in batting and backing cut slightly larger in behind. I laid out all my tiny pieces on the white fabric. Then I carried the whole thing very carefully to my machine which was set up with the quilting table around the needle so the mug rug could lie flat while I was quilting it and not flop off the machine (which would cause all the tiny pieces to fall off). I could have spray basted but I didn't want to risk a big sticky mess. Then I machine quilted with a wavy stitch I chose from my stitch selection guide. This way I sewed down my pieces and quilted at the same time. There are raw edges sticking out every which way and that was intentional. I then trimmed it, attached the binding and hand sewed the binding to the back. Voila! Rag rug mug rug. (Say that 5 times fast!)

A Rainbow coloured zipper pouch for another swap package extra.

I had one last glorious rainbow zipper which I sewed into a zipper pouch for my swap partner. I am now on the hunt for more rainbow zippers. I got these a Fabricland a few years ago but I don't know if they still stock them. This zipper got lots of positive comments on Instagram!

The Rainbow mini in indoor light.

Here is one last look at the mini. I am so pleased with how it turned out. I will definitely need to make one for myself now.

I am linking this project up with The 2015 Finish Along. This was number 8 on my Q1 Goals List.