Winter mini quilt

I'm working on a series of mini quilts, to hang in our entryway, that I will change with the seasons.  The first one I made was for Christmas.

In early January I made a mini quilt that represented Winter.

I was working, again, with Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking II.  I settled on what she calls "the exquisite block".  Basically a square or rectangle base, with triangles pieced onto the diagonal points.  When the blocks are joined together, you end up with a series of little bowties or butterflies, or however you want to see it.

My goal for this piece was to portray the starkness of winter by using lots of white and pale, cool blues and greys.  I also wanted to express the warmth that we cling to during these long months, the warmth we find within ourselves, in the company of family and friends, or quite literally the warmth of our physical homes.  I added the golden yellow blocks and some yellow triangles emanating out from it to represent the warmth and light that keeps us hanging on until spring.

I quilted it with a series of zigzag lines, emanating out from the bottom right corner, to emphasize the placement of the yellow blocks.

 I think it all works.  I'm happy with it!  My only complaint is that it doesn't quite lay flat against the wall, no doubt because of some technical error on my part.  Oh well.

A couple of weeks ago I got to present this during Show and Tell at my guild meeting, and Gwen Marston was in attendance, as she presented a lecture and trunk show for us that day.  It was really an honor to show her my work, and I was able to chat with her after the meeting.  The afternoon as a whole was probably the greatest highlight of my quilting life so far.