Mango Revisited

After much thought about which project to enter in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, I decided on my "Mango" quilt. It was a challenge in many ways, and was created specifically for my secret partner in the For the Love of Solids swap. We were all given our partner's favorite color, and an inspirational mosaic. We were able to cruise through their blog, and snoop around their flickr photostream. And then, we were to create something special, backed by all that quilty knowledge. Talk about pressure!

Besides the color mango, my partner liked circles, and had somewhat modern tastes. Thankfully, her answer to "Likes" being "whatever you enjoy" gave me some relief and a sense of freedom.

An idea developed in my  mind, and when I couldn't find a pattern that was just right, I went to my cutting table, surrounded by my tools of the trade and drew, cut, sewed, recut, resewed, etc., and finally came up with a small block I liked.

I tweaked one more time to enlarge the arches, and finally set to work making the little blocks.

I distributed three shades of orange evenly through the blocks, both in the rings, and in the "pinwheels." Four shades of gray went into each block center, then were used to frame the blocks somewhat arbitrarily. 

Finally, it was time to quilt. I chose to use variegated thread for the first time to tie all the oranges together, with a wavy quilting stitch to enhance the curves in the blocks.

Bound up in medium gray, off it went to my partner, Tina of Seaside Stitches. 

Though the process of making this quilt was nerve-wracking at times and filled with indecision, it stretched me in good ways. Using only solids and creating my own design were gratifying steps forward in my quilting journey.

Fabric is KONA cotton; batt is Warm and White Cotton Batting. Finished size approx. 42" square. If you would like to see my original post about this quilt, including a look at the back, see here. Thanks!

Linking up to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! Hope to see you there!