Sewing Room Swap

I am a queen of last-minute, nothing new here, but I have been particularly last-minute for the Sewing Room Swap. I am not sure how it happened, but it did happened. Anyway, before the week-end started, I hardly had anything done (I knew what I was making - pattern, fabric etc) but my progress was ridiculous. I picked a mini from my partner's mosaic as inspiration and decided to make a similar one. The mini is made of 4 Arkansas Stars from Lee's tutorial here in the Summer Sampler series.
I didn't cut out the diamonds for my blocks but used strips that I sew together before cutting the diamonds out. I used 2 5/8' strips but next time I would use 2 3/4' or even 3' strips as some were slightly on the shorter side. So by Thursday evening all I had done was my diamonds, I paper pieced half of the blocks on Friday night and the second half on Saturday. Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day here, sunny and warm, and I guess that's what gave me some energy to get going. I assembled the top for my mini Sunday afternoon

before making my small items for the swap. I had decided on the sewing kit and pencil pouch from the Zakka Style book as I had already road tested those before (I had to play as safe as possible by then!) I used some grey Essex Linen with the same assortment of blue fabrics from my mini for a coordinated look. A couple of hours later, I had a lovely sewing kit and pencil pouch ready to go!

I quilted my mini after dinner after the kids went to bed. I wanted to make the stars/diamonds stand out from the background so I quilted very close wavy parallel lines all over the background. It really makes the blue diamonds to raise above the surface, I love it!

I really like the effect on the back too with the stars and diamonds that are drawn.

While making the sewing kit, I used a single fold binding for the pockets, I thought it could be a good choice for my mini too because the binding is much narrower than a double fold and I really wanted to keep it as discreet as possible. So for the first time ever I used a single fold binding on a quilt which I attached all by machine (another first!)

So it is now all in the mail ready to go to its new house but I must say I could have kept this parcel for myself! I hope my partner likes it really!

In conclusion, last-minute works well for me. I am better under pressure usually other I can waste so much time procrastinating! And of course, there is a few OPAMs in there: 1 mini quilt, 1 sewing kit and 1 pencil pouch, that's my first 3 for March and it also crosses off my first item of my March list!

Linking to Brit Thursday Linky Party, Needle and Thread Thursday.
Celine