Trying something new

I am entering the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the first time! I'm super excited and you should join too! For more information about the festival, visit Amy's page here for all of the details you'll need to either enter, get inspired, or vote for your favorites (voting starts this weekend!)

 When I started thinking about entering the Blogger's Quilt Festival this year, I was in the midst of working on this quilt. Little did I know at the time it would soon become one of my favorite quilts ever and so much more than I ever imagined!

 It's hard to believe, but this is how it started. I cut up a bunch of pieces from my stash and added in a few colors here or there to get a nice mix. I liked it but I wasn't in love. When I paused to grab a drink and was glancing at the quilt, I got this crazy idea to shift the colors within the quilt and fade from one to the next. Keeping 98% of the original fabrics and adding in minimal pieces to blend the colors well, I ended up with this:

 As soon as it started to come together, I knew I was on the right track! Granted there are a few places that I wish the transition was a bit smoother, but it still works well for me.

Also, if you're a regular reader of my blog and you're sick of seeing this quilt, I swear after this it will go away, but I'm still in love, so....eh. If you're new to the blog, welcome and it's good to have you! Alrighty, back to the quilt.

So then it was time to quilt it. I only knew when I got started that I wanted to quilt paisley feathers somewhat down the middle-ish and then have it branch off from there to both sides of the quilt. I was just going to echo around it to fill in the remainder of the quilt... But then I got bored. Quick.

So that's when I started adding in pebbles and alternating the direction of the echo.

When that got boring I added in some traditional feathers and swirls, and why not - I added in some woodgrain. There's so much quilting going on but it works. The colors make your eye move around the quilt and the quilting keeps it interesting as you look.

 So then in a weak moment of insomnia I stayed up waaaaayyyyy too late to create a scrappy binding to match the colors of the quilt... It was the most complex binding I've ever created, but my favorite! Oh, and all of the binding pieces came from my binding stash (in the egg basket to the left of the quilt in the above photo).

And then before you knew it, it was done and quilted and bound and washed and crinkly and I love it. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do and if you like it enough that you'd like to make your own, I have created a tutorial for the quilt complete with printable instructions, just click here to go to that post.

So, that's my quilt I'm entering into the ROYGBIV category. Even though it's scrappy, I think it fits here the best. I hope you all like it and I can't wait to see what everyone else has entered. Remember to head over to amyscreativeside.com for all of the information on the Blogger's Quilt Festival!