abstract mini inspired by Yoshiko Jinzenji

Hello, happy Friday!!!

As promised, I'm back with part 2 of yesterday's post. I've had this book by Yoshiko Jinzenji Quilting Line + Color for quite a while now and have really admired her wonderfully modern quilts, but that was it. Just admiring, not knowing hot to produce anything even remotely similar to those minimalist and very sophisticated quilts.

Then, a few nights ago, I was desperately looking for some inspiration. I wanted to make a mini quilt, prompted by the Modern Mini Challenge launched by Ellison Lane Quilts, and I wanted to try something new.

I pulled Yoshiko's book out of my bookshelf and decided to give it a try - she uses a lot of white, and her quilts have tons of negative space. I did not really have fabrics like the ones she used, so I decided to improvise. I found out that if you cut large scale fabric into much smaller pieces you can end up with some pretty cool abstract looking patterns. Here is what I came up with.


I just used scraps of fabric from some of my previous projects. I limited my color palette to lime green, yellow, white, and some touches black. Yoshiko recommends using more shades of white to bring depth and dimension to the finished quilt. That's just what I did, I used Kona white for some of the squares as well as the sashing and the border. I also used some Kona ivory and a slightly different shade of white in my patterned fabrics.

I cut my fabric into 2.5" squares and decided to go with a very skinny, 1/4" sashing in between the squares. That did turn out pretty tricky, as I had to be very precise with my seams, but I think it was well worth it at the end.

I decided to go with straight line quilting 1/4" apart to give this mini an extra touch of  movement and texture. I added A Kona white binding  and that's it, it was all done. It definitely was not as quick of a project as I thought at first. I did, however, enjoy it very much and I'm sure I'll be making something similar, just bigger, soon. Of course, I will not be quilting a large quilt sewing straight lines every 1/4". That would border on insane, right? Maybe every 1/8"???? Just kidding!!


How about you, have you been trying any new techniques or designs lately?

Svetlana