on my design wall...

**The Brown Needle is now Sewlio. As of 5/1/13, all new blog posts can be found at www.sewliodesigns.com . Hope to see you there!**


Here is a peek at what I'm working on. You might remember the Starburst mini quilt I did last summer. I received numerous kind compliments and many e-mails asking about a pattern for this. So.... that's what I'm working on!

Starburst Block 1

I'm in the home stretch now. The pattern is written. My ever-so-talented-graphic-designer hubby is beautifying the pattern layout for me. I'm in the self-testing stage now- the part where I decide to take on a much bigger project than I have time for and make a big quilt with several blocks. The block above is #1. I had originally planned to make 9 blocks and a rather large quilt, but I've got a feeling that I might poop out after 4. Four is such a lovely number, and those blocks are so big- 22 inches square.

I had originally planned on having this done in October- I know I told a few of you that. It's February, in case you hadn't noticed. Our house managed to go through two different strains of the flu, pneumonia, bronchitis and a couple other colds this winter. My son was also hospitalized for a couple of days due to the flu and pneumonia. You get the point, right? Life happens.

If all goes well, and life doesn't interrupt, this pattern will be ready in March. I have already finished one quilt and pattern. Once Starburst is finished, an Inburst pattern will soon follow... and then there's a fourth pattern in progress.

I sense some over-commitment.... I'd better get busy.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Inburst (556)

**The Brown Needle is now Sewlio. As of 5/1/13, all new blog posts can be found at www.sewliodesigns.com . Hope to see you there!**

 

 

 

I'm very excited to finally show you my next finished quilt! I know you've all seen the top before, but I was saving the finished quilt for this fall's Blogger's Quilt Festival! I've decide to call it Inburst.

 

 

This is the first quilt that I made in collaboration with someone else. Who might have helped me out with this, you ask? Well, who else but my hubby! That's right. My hubby. He's a graphic designer with a great eye for color and I knew that I'd need another set of eyes to help with this one. I told him what I wanted to do and what kind of colors I wanted to make it and he was able to lay it all out on the computer for me. We spent a lot of time looking through the Kona Color Card trying to find the perfect colors. I think we did pretty good!

 

 

We finally narrowed it down to 11 different Kona solids for this quilt to achieve the look I was going for. I really wanted it to look like the colors were transparent and overlapping. I think the photo below shows the look the best, even if it is a little bright! (I could use some photography tips!) That's a really difficult task! I used Kona White, Canary, Corn, Azalea, Carnation, Primrose, Mango, Kumquat, Orange, Papaya, and School Bus. The Binding is Kona Azalea and the back is Dear Stella Bukhara in Orange.

 

 

I quilted it just outside of the ditch and took each row to the edge of the quilt. I echoed in to the center and really just had to improvise as I went. I had trouble taking a photo that shows the center quilting. The photo below show how the center quilting turned out. I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this one. It doesn't match my house. I'm trying to talk my daughter into letting me redo her bedroom so I can hang it in there. She doesn't like change. So This one's just going to sit for now. That's kind of sad, don't you think?

Happy Blogger's Quilt Festival! I'm just loving looking at all the wonderful quilts. Inspiration has hit and so I'm off to start a new something!


Quilt Details: #556
Finished Size: 48x56
Techniques: Pieced
Quilted with straight lines on home machine with walking foot
Categories: Throw, Quilted on home machine, Wall Hanging