Rainbow Mini Swap 2015

A few months ago I came across a mini quilt swap that I wanted to participate in.  Kate Basti over on Instagram was hosting and I hadn't done a mini quilt swap (well, not a successful swap).  Seemed like the perfect opportunity to dive right in. I grabbed this charm pack filled with a rainbow of prints and did a bunch of thinking.

Here are the rulers I used for the basic block-making.  Nothing fancy here.  How to make the results fancy with only one charm pack?  I like to challenge myself.

Each charm could be cut into two 2.5" squares and two HST pieces.  I played with layout and ended up here.  This isn't where I stopped, though.

This collection of fabrics does not include a purple, so I had to pull this purple out of my stash.  I think it complements the rest of the colors nicely.

I wanted the colors to march across the quilt and give the impression of a rainbow.

I made enough of these blocks for two little quilts.  (Yes, I made myself one, but I think that is a good thing.  I will likely mix these up throughout the blog post.  Don't let this bother you.  The one intended for my partner ended up in her hands and the other on my wall.)

Next was adding a border to make these minis a little less mini and still meet the size requirements.  I went with an off-center layout from there.  Narrow and wide borders gave the little arrows some room to fly.

I quilted both of these mini quilts on my long arm.

I went with Angela Walters' hook swirl design as an all-over design for this quilt.

I put some of the left over charms into the backing.

A quilt like this needs an special label.  I found out that most embroidery fonts do not include a # as part of their character set.  I had to search through my collection until I found one.

Chevrons are one of my favorite fabrics for bindings.  I like stripes, polka-dots and chevrons for bindings.

The hardest part about this swap was keeping this little quilt under wraps until it was finished, shipped and received.  Swaps really challenge me because I have to wait to share and I'm just so excited about the project.

Have you joined any fun swaps recently?