Small Wonders Kaleidoscope

Today, I'd like to share my Springs Creative Kaleidoscope quilt with you. While I'm at it, how about a free coloring book outline and paper piecing units to make a custom kaleidoscope quilt of your own?

Let's talk inspiration. I really liked the look of Kati of From the Blue Chair's Grandma's Surprise mini, @ellibeaven's Cotton+Steel Mini Quilt Swap winner (made from Jennifer Mathis of Ellison Lane's Southern Star pattern), and a mini quilt by Debbi Groskopf that I saw in the market booth for Patty Sloniger's Into the Deep fabric line. The impetus for these works was often cited as Joyce Dean Gieszler's Then and Now Quilts referenced in her blog post and Dawn White of First Light Designs' post.

Using the inspiration pieces as a starting point, I created a 60" square quilt design composed entirely of 12" kaleidoscope blocks with EQ7. The fabrics I chose from the Small Wonders collection by Mary Fons include Mustard South America Ditsy, Cream Netherlands Ditsy, France Leaf, and France Mustard Ditsy. I incorporated a solid black to emphasize the prints and provide negative space for elaborate free-motion.

I began constructing paper-pieced units. Oh so many paper pieced units!

These eventually came together to form blocks.

 In turn, these began to form a top.

I pinned, and I pebbled. And pebbled and pebbled...

Then, I practiced.

After which, I decided it was time to get down to business. The fill in the black background was inspired by Jess at Elven Garden Quilt's floating motifs over a straight-line background in her Binalong quilt.

Next, I quilted the life into it.

To quote Oscar Wilde, "Nothing succeeds like excess."

I used matching thread to add texture without distracting from the fabrics and overall design -- 50 weight Aurifil #2692, #2135, and #2311 to be exact. For those who want to spoil themselves a bit, there' a thread set to go with the Small Wonders collection. (Yes, I'm an enabler.)

When all was said and done, I took my creation on a field trip. This is what grass looks like in New Mexico. Just kidding. Kind of.

Thank for visiting me.

I'm linking up with:

Free Motion Mavericks

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Lessons Learned Linky #4

Welcome to the April installment of Lessons Learned Linky, where I encourage you to share your tutorials, discoveries, and revelation-inducing mishaps so that we can all learn from each other.
I learned some really useful things from my fellow quilters this past month.
Anne at Hudson Valley Quilts explained why updating your quilting rulers may be a good idea in her first installment of a four part series on measuring skills quilters can't live without. Like her, I have a huge square ruler (affiliate link), and love it.
Julie at Pink Doxies made an excellent point about how the weight of your embroidery floss can impact the ease of hand quilting.
Jennifer at The Inquiring Quilter gives some tips about making rag quilts.
Juliet at The Tartan Kiwi discussed how the scale of a fabric print can impact your quilt. I'll be pattern testing her seahorse pattern. So awesome!
Kitty at Night Quilter shared some of her favorite finishing tools and techniques. I use self-threading needles, and have the Hera marker on my shopping list now.
Beth at Cooking Up Quilts gave me the idea to use gripper pads for gripping a quilt during free-motion.  I tried this, and can attest that it worked really well.
Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl explained how to use tailor's tape as a straight line reference when long-arming and how to add a subtle detail to binding.
Jayne at Twiggy and Opal proved to me that sometimes we are our own worst critics, and often our mistakes could easily go unnoticed by others.
Julie at The Crafty Quilter has a wonderful video and tutorial on using machine embroidery stitches when appliquéing. I, for one, underutilize my decorative stitches, and can benefit from her expertise.

Lesson Learned

This month I realized a few things about free-motion quilting. First, it's a good idea to do some mental calculating about how long it takes you to do a particular free-motion motif (say, pebbles, for instance) before you commit to an entire background of that design. Secondly, while using a matching thread color may create lovely thread texture while deemphasizing bobbles, it simultaneously hides the thread as you quilt with it. This makes it awfully hard to tell where you've been, and where you are going.

Here's the low-down:

• By sharing here, you give me permission to feature your post on Quilting Mod (including a photo) with proper attribution and a link to the original.
• Spread the comment love.
• Link back to this post. I have a button you can grab below.
• Multiple posts are fine so long as they are from this month.

At the end of the month, one lucky linker will win two fat quarters of Flock Together by Kathy Doughty for FreeSpirit Fabric.
Update: KatyQuilts is the winner!

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