Flashing Geese Mini Mini

You may recall the minimini I entered into Make Modern's Challenge back in June:

I can tell you more about it now that it has arrived in Ireland, which was really quick btw!  Flashing Geese is now living in Helen's house.  Helen of Midget Gem Quilts.  Ha, just realized a minimini is an appropriately sized quilt for a midget gem of a blog no?!

Couldn't resist popping in this photo once again, geese on the ... hmmm...crane.  Whatever, birds of a feather, as I said before!

I had offered a little while ago to purchase and send some fabric to Helen if she wanted to take advantage of some of the awesome sales that occur from time to time at Fat Quarter Shop, and Craftsy.  Well she took me up on that offer.  How could I just merrily pop the little package in the mail to her when it arrived at my house without adding a little personal touch?  I couldn't.   This was also a way to test a paper-piecing pattern for another idea I had in the Henry Glass Fabrics Desire to Inspire Challenge.

Some of the symbolism in the minimini:
The name:  Flashing because you may recall Helen recently finished a gorgeous quilt called Mrs. Hot Hot using bee blocks from last year.  She and I are within a few months of the same age, so we occasionally get hot flashes... Geese because Canada Geese are even found in Ireland!   I am Canadian.

The binding:  First of all I love black and pink (to be honest, I love black with any colour) but I knew I wanted to frame this in a black and white print.  At the time I was binding it, Helen was "parlez-vous français-ing" around France, and when I spotted the Michael Miller Eiffel Tower print in my stash, well, cue the choir.  If you look closely at the binding, those longer 'strips' of white you see beside the tiny flower?  That's a part of La Tour Eiffel.

The quilting:
As I said to someone on the post where I showed you my Make Modern minimini entry, I guess it's micro-matchstick quilting!  I hadn't set out to do that but wanted to flatten the background around the coloured geese as well as the ghost geese, and the back and forth gave the sense of direction of zooming geese flying north or south, take your pick, with the swirls indicating wind currents.

The back: (a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say)

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  based on a Carol Doak paper-piecing pattern
Size: 4.25" square
Fabric: scraps from my stash; backing is a charm square from a Northcott Fabrics Oh Canada and Stonehenge pack from Sew Sisters; binding is Michael Miller
Batting: Warm 'n Natural scrap
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced and quilted with Gütermann; quilted with white Isacord 50 wt.

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Crazy Mom Quilts