A Timeline for a Quilt

February 2009 – buy fabric.

February to Summer – pet fabric, envision gorgeous quilts, remain paralyzed in fear of cutting beautiful fabrics.  Scour flickr for quilt inspiration.

Summer – Select quilt pattern.  Engineer how to make quilt.  Cut bazillions upon bazillions of little triangles. Get sick of cutting.

Fall to Winter – Forget about quilt.

Spring – remember fabric half cut for quilt.  Dig out pieces.  Remember plan.  Finish cutting other bazillion triangles.  Start piecing.  Interest in other projects surpasses interest in quilt. 

June/July – In fit of motivation, finish piecing quilt. 

July – Momentum continues! Quilt top finished, sandwiched, bound, and quilted. 

Now the real question is how do all you flickrites manage to post freshly finished quilts on a weekly (or less!) basis? 

Pattern:  No real pattern. I found a couple photos of kaleidoscope quilts on flickr and fell in love.  I bought a 45 degree triangle quilting template, but halfway through the project ordered a kaleidoscope-specific template.  

Notes: 

We had some guests over while I was finishing up the quilt top and someone gave me what I consider the ultimate compliment – “wow, this looks like something you’d find in anthropologie!”

I really wanted to play with hot pink as an accent color, but knew there would be no chance J would be cool with a hot pink bedspread, even in miniscule amounts.  So, I went with red.  I still would prefer hot pink, but I’m digging the red.

Overall, I’m in love with the quilt.  I had some moments of doubt during its construction – things like whether or not the gray was dark enough, whether the colors would achieve the look I was striving for, whether my imprecise piecing would be evident, etc.—but now that it’s done, I love it. 

I’m usually drawn to the boldest prints and colors in each fabric collection, which are gorgeous on their own, but often too distracting in quilts. I forced myself made a strong effort to choose some small-scale prints and introduce a level of simplicity with the quilt.  Hence, all the 45 degree triangles are the same print in each block.  I think employing some restraint worked out.   

Fabrics:

A mix of:

Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks

Amy Butler’s Lotus 

Heather Bailey’s Pop Garden

Kona Ash

With this out of the way, I can work on some little projects for the little chicklet, set to arrive in 8 short weeks!

Quilting:

Because this is a queen-sized quilt, I kept things simple.  I stitched a line on either side of each block seam and then through the center of the block, both vertically and horizontally.