Mystery Mother’s Day project unveiled...

Ta-dah! Here is the mini-quilt/wall hanging that I have made for my mother, ready to pop into the post just in time to arrive on American Mother’s Day.

I was inspired by the words and hand flower design, which I found on Pinterest a while back, but it all was painted onto a piece of yellow paper. I wanted something that was a keepsake, so I decided to use off-white linen, fabric paints and pens for the hand flowers and embroidery for the words. I decided on the pretty coordinating fabric for a border at the last minute. I used a bit of fusible fleece and the same floral fabric for the back.

I wanted to keep the words in a basic font, very simply done, to reflect the children’s hand prints. The light brown stitching uses backstitch, with two strands of floss. The red and purple words are in a chunkier chain stitch using six strands. It’s all quite tiny, and the finished piece is the size of a placemat. In fact, I’m going to include a note that states, “This is not a placemat!” Next time I’ll know better and alter the dimensions a bit.  

I do hope she likes it. She likes browns and creams, hence the border and light brown floss, but the girls chose the colours they wanted for their hands. I didn’t want to force them to use a muted green or brown to match her decor!

My mother definitely is not a fan of patchwork, so I had to choose carefully what I did with the linen. I considered a hoop frame, but there is no way she’d want that hanging around her house (yes, our tastes are very different!), a cushion wouldn’t work anywhere either, and I had already given her a framed piece of silk ribbon embroidery, so I didn’t want to frame this as well.

I have some books on quilting, including mini-quilts, but I hadn’t made one until today. This actually isn’t a proper quilt, as I didn’t use any decorative stitching all over the finished fabric sandwich, and I didn’t do a bias binding border, but honestly, she wouldn’t like that anyway, so I was let off the hook.

However, I consider this my first lesson in quilting, no matter how restrained the design. Now I simply must make a pretty, girly, pink patchwork mini-quilt all for myself!

I have some exciting crochet news to share with you next time you visit...happy crafting!

Chrissie x