Poster in Coral

The idea for this quilt came from a poster block I made last year for Kari/Craft happy in the Bee Sewcial bee. I know it's crazy, but I've thought about that block (shown below) off and on ever since, wanting eventually to make it into a quilt. I've had a couple of yards of Kona Coral in my stash for when the time presented itself, and a couple of weeks ago at a SMQG sew-in, it finally did.

The actual quilt I created is very similar, yet just a tad different in than I didn't use exactly the same colors in the accent bits and I surrounded the basic 'block' with some negative space. If I have a disappointment, it's that on version 2.0 (below), the hot pink segments don't show up well. They are a subtle accent when you view the piece in person, but they aren't an obvious element in most of the photos. But they are there!

With a design so simple, I really wanted to add some interest with the quilting. Seven colors of Aurifil 50wt played major roles: 2024 (white), 2140 (mustard), 2230 (medium peony), 2250 (red), 2530 (blossom pink), 2692 (black), 2805 (light turquoise). An eclectic mix, yes, but I think they work, and boy did it make the quilting itself an interesting experience.

Matchstick quilting for the win!

For the backing, I had pieced together some scraps I'd been playing with and placed them amongst long swaths of solids I'd used on the front, leaving enough coral for binding that almost got all the way around the quilt. The last bit of binding was done in the deep red used in one single segment of the front. Coral and red may seem an incongruous combo, but for some reason I loved it.

This quilt finished at 30" x 40", and I can finally mark it off my list. One of my goals for this year was to try some of my own designs just for the fun of it, and in this poster in coral, I definitely did.

And yeah, I had a hard time deciding what photos to include in this post. There's even more in my Flickr photostream . . .