Welcome to the Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday party 🎉 I have a small finish to share this week.
A friend is battling breast cancer. Thankfully it was caught early at a routine mammogram (consider this your reminder to schedule those routine medical checks!), so her prognosis is good. Still, 2025 has been "a ride," as she put it. I decided to make her a mini quilt I'm describing as a fist bump in quilt form for when she needs it.
I was on a roll making this little mini, so much so that I was almost finished the quilting before I realized I hadn't paused to take a single picture. Oops!
Orange is her favourite colour, so I coloured the text with orange crayon. I have a
tutorial here for how to do that. It's a quick and easy way to add text to a quilt.
Then came the fun part - quilting it! I started by outlining each letter with Aurifil 1133 (Bright Orange).
Then I used Aurifil 1133, 2390 (Cinnamon Toast), and 2135 (Yellow) to add some freehand flowers. They're all perfectly imperfect, just like real flowers. I didn't really plan out their placement, I just started adding them and stopped when it felt like there were enough. Then I finished off the quilting with a dense stipple in Aurifil 2024 (White).
I usually use a solid for the back, but went with this fabric from Island Batik for its oranges, instead. I also added a couple of folded triangles at the top in case she wants to hang it.
When putting on the binding, I must have been distracted. I usually put it on the back first, then fold it over to the front and stitch it down by machine. You can see my full
machine binding tutorial here. This time, I put it on the front first, then had to fold it to the back. Last time I did that (a couple of years ago), I hand stitched the binding to the back. I really didn't want to do that this time, though, so I clipped the binding in place all around the quilt and stitched at the edge of the binding from the front, hoping to catch it on the back. It worked, except where it missed a little bit at the bottom. Since it's just a mini quilt, I declared that to be good enough!
I can't do anything about the medical side of things for my friend, but hopefully this quilted fist bump reminds her that she's strong.
That's my finish this week. What have you finished lately? Link it up below, then be sure to visit some of the other links and celebrate their finishes, too!
Your friend will appreciate her mini quilt, so glad the cancer was caught early.
ReplyDeleteYour mini quilt is lovely for a fist-bump!!! I'll be praying for your friend! HUGS
ReplyDeleteYour mini is so cute! Love the idea of hanging triangles.
ReplyDeletegreat idea and will be so appreciated
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to read your letters are made with crayon coloring! I thought you were doing some very fine appliqué! I like the addition of 70's flowers to the quilting, too. Wonderful encouragement for your friend.
ReplyDeleteWhat a loving mini to make for your friend. I hope that she is well on the path toward full health and am glad it was caught early.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet finish. It will give her hug each time she sees it.
ReplyDeleteYour mini quilt is very pretty and the message of encouragement surely will be appreciated!
ReplyDelete