Valentine's Yucca Mini-Quilt

I signed up for the Valentine's Day Swap over at Happy Hour Projects.  I was paired up with the fabulous Claudia from Casa de Berry.  Ya'll should check out her fun projects and veggies and bloggy goodness.

Anyway,  she said her current favorite color combination was turquoise and olive green.  That immediately made me think of yuccas (the state flower of New Mexico) at white sands with mountains in the background and the clear deep blue sky.  Makes me homesick for the high desert!

Source: wallpaper-s.org via Shannon on Pinterest

I decided to make her a mini-quilt with a turquoise/olive themed yucca on one side and a valentines theme on the other hand. I wanted to make it completely reversible so that most of the year the yucca can be on front and at Valentine's Day time she can flip it over.

I drafted a yucca paper piecing pattern and then pieced it with various scraps from my stash.

 After assembling all the pieces, I made the flower part of the yucca using my trusty scalloped edge rotary cutter blade.   For the back, I string pieced red scraps and then machine appliqued several hearts using a blanket stitch.  I quilted it from the yucca side, using the yucca pieces as a guide for my FMQ.  I used clear monofilament thread in my bobbin so that there weren't distracting greens and blues on the back valentine side.

Because I wanted it to be completely reversible, I didn't want a pocket or triangle hangers on the back, so I made top tabs for hanging.  I started with tubes of fabric and stitched them in under the binding as I sewed it on to the front of the quilt.  Then when I flipped the binding around to the back, I folded and tucked the ends of the flaps under the binding before machine stitching down.  Ignore the way-too-longness of the tabs,  I just trimmed them off before tucking the ends under.  Now it's finished on both sides and can be hung with a small dowel.

Here I'm sort of measuring to see how much tab to cut off before flipping it underneath the binding.

I made the binding a little wider than necessary, so there's quite a bit extra on the back, but I think it finished nicely!  I had a lot of fun designing and making this mini and I hope Claudia likes it!