Modern Mini Quilt Challenge at Ellison Lane Quilts

Ellison Lane, which is one of my favorite quilting blogs to follow, is having a modern mini quilt challenge.  Today is the last day to sign up.  I've been sewing my little fingers raw trying to get my mini quilt finished in time. 

I started my mini about 2 weeks ago so that I could participate and as I've mentioned before, I sew at a snail's pace compared to most people.

 

The challenge was to try something new.  Maybe a new pattern, new technique, new thread, try to expand your horizons so to speak.

 

TaDAAAAAA!! Here is my expanded horizon and my modern mini quilt for the challenge!

 



 During my process of making my mini, I had lots of "news".

*I used the wonky star block pattern for the first time.  I've always liked the way it looked on other quilts and it was fun and easy to make.
*I used a new thread - a 100% polyester quilting thread by Mettler, color # 0624 (which is a gray that matches my background fabric).  I have been using Aurifil 50 wt. cotton thread which I love.  But I have to say, I really liked the Mettler as well.
*I free motion quilted it!!  This was my first time to free motion quilt something that wasn't a practice sandwich quilt.  It was a lot more fun than straight line stitching and I think I'm hooked.

 Here's the awesome looking back!

 I chose red, white and blue because I needed a patriotic table topper for my dining room table.  I chose the gray background color because I wanted to do something different from my usual white and also because it is used a lot in modern quilting.

 

 See my free motion quilting stitches?  They are pretty good.  I used a random loopy pattern and it is by no means perfect.  There are mistakes all over the place.  Every time I had to stop and start, I had trouble getting my stitches uniform.  And then just when I would get into a groove, I would have to stop or the bobbin would run out or something equally annoying.

 Even the back looks pretty good.  I do think my stitches need to be tighter but I couldn't figure out how to do that.  I adjusted my tension several times - maybe I just need to practice more.  Also, I did a terrible job on the binding which is why there are no close ups of that.  I got in a hurry and made some stupid mistakes.  I may end up taking it off and redoing it.  Although, maybe I should just love it because it's not perfect?

And I forgot to mention the size of my mini.  It is 19.5 inches by 19.5 inches. 

Anywho, I'm linking this post up to Ellison Lane Quilts for the mini quilt challenge.  She has lots of great prizes and there are lots of great entries.  Hop on over to her blog and check them out.