Ribbon Heart Mini Quilt (Living Coral)

Coral fabric – do you love it? Or does it make you wince?

I have to admit that after a rocky start the 2019 Pantone Colour of the Year, Living Coral, is growing on me.

I’m not much of a pinky, peachy girl, but as an accent colour I can see that coral can be beautiful.

I’m especially fond of a navy and coral fabric combination. I’ve explored that with this pattern here, as well as with this mini quilt below (pattern here).

I consulted my stash cupboard last weekend and found some nice coral fabrics hidden away in there. You can see a selection of them below:

From top to bottom: 1. Avantgarde Uninhibited in Bask by Katarina Roccella

2. Deity in Orchid from Tula Pink’s Eden line (technically not coral as it’s an orange pattern on pink fabric, but it reads from a distance as coral. It’s also a very useful fabric if you are making a transition [or ombre] from orange to pink).

3. Kona in Coral.

4. Not sure about this one. No selvedge. I think it’s a Timeless Treasures Sketch fabric.

5. Kona in Nectarine.

This small fabric grouping caught my eye:

L to R: Fern Bouquet from Dear Stella’s Foxtail Forest, Carolyn Friedlander crosshatch in Creamsicle and Avantgarde Uninhibited in Bask.

I thought this would be a fun combination to use with my new Ribbon Heart mini quilt pattern. So far all my versions of this mini quilt had been made with darker fabrics on a pale background. I was interested to see how it would look with bright fabrics on a dark background.

Hey, I think it looks pretty cute!

I had some fun matchstick quilting this one. Lots of lines in dove grey thread, but it really didn’t take long as it’s such a small piece.

I didn’t want too much contrast in the binding for this one, as I felt it would detract from the pop of the heart.

So I used the background fabric for binding with just a snippet of coral contrast (the pattern has instructions for this).

I could also have chosen to use the self-binding method, which I’ve described here, to create a “no-edge” look. But I don’t really enjoy sewing with that method very much. It’s somewhat finicky and by the time I’m at the stage of binding I’m totally over finicky! I much prefer to sew a standard binding, which is what I did.

I’m really happy with how this Ribbon Heart mini turned out, and I enjoyed a bit of experimentation with coral fabrics.

If you’d like to see the Ribbon Heart mini quilt made up in different colours, you can see some in this post here.

So what do you think about coral fabric? Yay or nay? Will you be sewing something in Living Coral this year?

I don’t think I’m done with coral just yet :)

Have a great weekend and wishing you happy sewing (in coral or otherwise!)

Kirsty

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