Windows for Wishes - a finished Mini Quilt

I finished something!  Can you believe it?  On Sunday I finished the fun cathedral window blocks that I'm going to be adding to Heather's "Wishes for my Daughter" quilt.  I wanted to practice working with them to see how difficult it would be before I worked on the final product for Heather's quilt and since I made a bunch of extra blocks I decided to keep some for myself to make a mini quilt.

When I was choosing a thread to top-stitch with I remembered that I had picked up a spool of hot pink thread at Vermont Quilt Festival this summer and thought it might be perfect for this.  I love how clashy-bright it is.  It blends nicely with some of the windows but really pops out on others.

After I finished top stitching and piecing the top I decided to pebble quilt the background.  Half way through I wasn't loving the result.  It's busier than I think I had originally pictured in my head but at that point, it was too late to go back.  There's no way I was going to pick out all of those stitches.  I used a soft mint thread that again blends nicely with some of the backgrounds and contrasts with others.  Overall I'm happy with the quality of the FMQ.  I've been doing a lot of sketching and practicing on paper so this was a nice opportunity to put some of that to use on a real (although small) quilt.  I had some problems with eye lashing towards the end of the quilting but the issues were minimal so I decided to leave them in place.

And finally, here's the finished mini.  See how nice that hot pink thread is?  I like how it stands out on the darker purples and palest pinks!  I'm calling this one "Windows for 'Wishes'".  It measures approximately 12 1/2" by 16 1/4".

It's bound using an unknown black and white polka-dot from my stash and backed using Pilvi in Eggplant from the Mormor collection, one of the fabrics that didn't make the cut for the front.  I used my favorite method to add fast triangle hangers to the back for quick display.

I brought this one to work with me to hang with some of my other mini quilts.  A nice reminder that I can be both analytical and creative.  It's also fun to see how different each of the mini's are and how much my skills have improved.  That circle of geese mini was one of the first paper piecing projects I ever worked on and also the first quilt I machine quilted myself and tried to machine bind.  Don't look at the back... it's terrible.  :)

Happy Quilting!