Project Quilting 13.4--Mining for Diamonds

This week is Challenge #4 in the current season of Project Quilting, hosted by Kim Lapacek at Persimon Dreams. The theme for this week's challenge is "Mining Diamonds," any project inspired by diamonds, and it had to be started and finished within the week! My entry is a small purse called Black Diamonds.

Black Diamonds purse

I started by cutting a pile of diamonds from a wide variety of 1.5" strips in different black and dark grey prints. I laid a selection of them out on my cutting mat to see how they looked together, then started piecing them into diagonal strips. Here's the panel I made with the diamonds, before and after I trimmed it to size (7.75" x 9.5".)

I quilted the panel to thin black batting and a piece of light weight black cotton, stitching diagonal lines across the piece.

For the back I used a solid black twill, and I quilted that in a diamond grid. I also added a zipper pocket on the back, deep enough to hold my cell phone.

There's also a zipper across the top of the purse, and a strap long enough to wear it as a cross-body bag. This will be the perfect bag when I don't need to carry my usual big purse and just need a small bag for the basics. The finished size is about 7" x 9".

I'm very happy to have completed another Project Quilting challenge, and with days to spare! It's time to link up and see the other diamond-inspired projects.

Linking up with:

Project Quilting 13.4 at Persimon Dreams

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

TGIFF (Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday)

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA