Rustic heather

Hi all!  How is it Friday again already?  When they say it's a short week, they really mean that it's a short week!  I hope everyone had a great holiday.  One of the perks of living on the East coast is the Independence celebrations and other historical events.  Is there any better place to celebrate our country than the place where it all began?  We had a fun time and only got rained on once, so a good time was had by all.  And no sunburn, so bonus!

Even though it was a short week with many celebratory events, I did finish something small, a little mini quilt, actually:

Photos in the rain again!

This is a mini quilt that's about 18 inches square, and it's destined to live on the wall in my kitchen if the kitchen is ever finished.  I would show you a picture but it's too depressing.  The kitchen, not the quilt!  But the carpenter has sworn on a stack of cookbooks that he's coming on Monday, so there may be hope.  

This mini is one block, called Scotch Heather, a Nancy Cabot block that dates to 1936.  I've made this block before, for the It's Complicated quilt in 2016.  I managed to make it in a 12-inch block, but it's really not intended to be a 12-inch block.  I've been feeling bad about that ever since.  When I made it this time I made all of the units finish at 2 inches, and it turned out just great.  I'm calling it "rustic heather" because of the block name and the fabric.  The main fabric is a blue-green batik that has some leaves and whatnot in the print and I just love it.  The brighter green is a Color Weave Textured Solid that I got from Bernie (and I know she still has it in her shop, so go take a look).

For the quilting, I'm trying to practice more, and this time I cut some templates out of freezer paper and stitched around them freehand:

This took the "free-motion" pressure off me, and it worked pretty well.  One thing I learned is that you can really only iron on one freezer paper motif at a time, even on a really small quilt like this.  The quilt gets moved around and scrunched and the paper comes off.  Since the templates are reusable a bunch of times, that would also save on cutting. 

The quilting is easier to see on the back, even though it's not really easy to see there, either.  The oak leaf motif turned out okay, which will go well with a rustic-inspired kitchen.  Also, oak leaves are pretty easy to draw, which is the main reason I chose them.  The center square has a little acorn in it.  And I just now realized that I forgot to put a sleeve on the back before I put on the binding.  That shouldn't be too hard to do by hand, though. 

So that's my little finish for the week!  I hope that every one has a great weekend.  I don't know what our plans are yet, but I know they won't be taking place in the kitchen! 

Sharing at crazymomquilts, Finished or Not Friday, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.