By Diane Harris, HQ Stitch Brand Ambassador

On Saturday I made a quick mini quilt for my great-niece who turns 13 next week. It started out with a piece of indigo blue fabric I bought several years ago, on which a bunny had been created with a resist. It was about 10″ x 12″.

I knew I didn’t have a lot of time so the first thing I did was to mentally make peace with some imperfection. This wasn’t meant to be a masterpiece. I knew my machine quilting skills were rusty after several months in dormancy and I really only had the morning to do this. But I reasoned that if I did it with love, she would love it and that was what mattered.

I pulled some fabrics from my stash. The blue paperweight Kaffe Fassett fabric looked great with the indigo, and several yellow-greens played nicely with it.

A bit of math and I decided that half-square triangles finishing at 1.5″ could border the whole thing if I made it 7.5″ x 9″. So I trimmed it down, and that’s where I made a rookie mistake!

I forgot to add the seam allowance.

So it was a good thing I had already made peace with imperfection. I sewed some of the blue back on and plunged ahead.

Mr. Bunny needed an accent color and I decided on hot pink. This print by Carrie Bloomston would add a modern element.

Thirty minutes later, I was ready to quilt. Do you see the seam near the top of the blue panel? 😜That was my whoops when I forgot to add 1/2″ for the seam allowance.

Knowing what to quilt in the different spaces is always the hardest part for me. Once again I mentally prepared myself for being rusty and I decided to quilt leaves in the half-square triangles. I added some grass below the bunny. Not the best-looking grass ever but I decided it would be okay.

I quilted a sunshine in the top right corner. Ever since childhood, this has been my go-to for that part of a picture. It seems to be in my genes.

A little cloud for the top left corner and a hot pink outline for the bunny.

One line of stitching looked weak so I went around a second time for a scribble effect. He looks okay!

In hindsight I can see that the bunny seems to float on top of the grass. Next time I will try for more perspective. I finished with a single-fold binding in the blue print.

I wrote a Happy Birthday message to my girl in permanent fabric marker right on the back of the quilt, near the top.

I signed my name on the back, near the bottom. The critical information to always include is your name, the location, and a date.

And the finish! It’s not perfect but it was made with love. And I have no doubt that my little lady will adore it.

Remember this:

Finished is better than perfect.