Radiant Mini Medallion: Pantone Challenge 2014

I'm so excited to have finally finished my Radiant Mini Medallion quilt and to link up with the Pantone Challenge 2014. I'm also excited to finally share it as the rainy weekend kept me from taking photos as soon as it was done. Radiant Mini Medallion seems like an uninspired name but I'll blame that on disturbed sleep thanks to a certain teething baby. When asked, the hubs (who has asked to be known around here as Mr Berry) suggested "Purplexing" which is very clever but not quite what I was going for...

Please forgive me for a picture heavy post but I'm really quite excited by it. This is the smallest piecing I've done and at times it felt like a real labour of love but I like it so much now it's done! Also it's the first quilt I've designed and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I'll list the details for posterity:
Finished Size: 24 in x 24 in
Center star: 8 in x 8 in
First pieced boarder: 1 in wide
Second pieced boarder: 2 in wide
Third pieced boarder: 2 in wide

For the backing I used a nice chunk of this print from Joel Dewberry's line Bungalow

I quilted it by stitching in the ditch on most of the seams. This has the lovely benefit of showing the design of the quilt top on the back which I really like

This is my first medallion quilt and I have to say I don't think it will be my last. It's quite compelling adding borders and watching it grow. And there were so many borders I didn't get to try this time...

Radiant Orchid

I'm not much of a purple person. I don't dislike it. I don't love it. Usually it makes me think of my mum. She wears a lot of purple. And painted her living room lavender. Overall, I've been a little surprised by the strong dislike of purple from many corners of the quilt blogging community and so was amused when Pantone declared Radiant Orchid the colour of the year. I decided to join the ranks of those wrestling with this under appreciated colour to see if I could take purple from "meh" to "yum!". These posts by Adrianne from On the Windy Side and Anne from Play Crafts really helped open me up to purple's potential.

After much fabric auditioning I settled on these.

I started with this little star...

 ...and decided to combine a number of items on my quilty bucket list.

Medallion quilt - tick

Mini quilt - tick

Tiny piecing - tick (nothing smaller than a square inch finished - I'm not completely mad... yet...)

Accurate piecing - a little soon to tell but so far so good, it's really obvious when tiny blocks don't line up!

I have spent hours cutting tiny pieces, and of course just when I thought they were all done I changed my mind and needed more! But if I've counted correctly they're all done now and it's just a simple matter of putting them all together. 

Yep... Simple...

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Edited to add:

I'm excited to be linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday today! It's my first link up. A big hello to anyone visiting from there. It's so nice to have you visit :-)