Kaleidoscope – a colorful string quilt

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments and creative name suggestions! I think Kerri was the first person to mention kaleidoscope, and I thought it was perfect as soon as I heard the suggestion. It seems as though many others had the same thought as well – I should count how many actually! – there were many suggestions of the same. So thank you all, and thank you Kerri and everyone else who said kaleidoscope – I think it’s perfectly fitting for this quilt!

[Help! This quilt needs a name! I’ve put off posting about it because I couldn’t come up with anything, but really we have no ideas aside from the obvious, which I guess makes us not so very creative… I’ll post it anyway, with this boring title, but perhaps someone will have a great suggestion and I can change the title and pretend I thought of it… I mean, change the title and give that person all the credit…]

While I really love a quilt with a lot of white, I love love love this quilt with very little white. It’s so bright and colorful, and it contains so many of my favorite fabrics (many that I’ve been hoarding ahem, saving, for some time!)

You’ll remember that I opted to paper piece these blocks (you don’t have to, I just happen to like it). I figured ripping the paper off the blocks would be the most tedious part of this quilt… soooo, I invited my brother Ryan over one night and then put a stack of the paper-backed blocks in front of him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. (Thank you!)

It’s quilted in a random meandering with cream colored thread and measures 48″x 70″.

For the back I used a solid aqua fabric (Amy Butler, I believe…I don’t think I had tried any of her solids, but they’re quite nice!).

It’s the first time for a solid colored fabric for a backing, but I think this quilt called for it. And I’m on a stripe kick so there had to be stripes on the back…

Fun, don’t you think?

(Oh, and Amy, I took your advice and opted against the white binding… while I think I would have liked the look, I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked it when it was showing signs of dirt!)

And, in case you’re looking, I did up a tutorial for these blocks, which you can find here.