go big!

I’ve been thinking about this quilt for a long time now, ever since seeing a vintage version at an antique shop a while back. Then I realized that there’s also another similar version in one of my favorite books, Roderick Kiracofe’s Unconventional & Unexpected (here’s a link to an image of the quilt, which is called Mosaic Rose). Despite loving both versions made up with patterned fabrics, I really wanted to see mine in all solids. I finally decided to stop obsessing about it in my mind and just start working on one of my own!

The kind people at Robert Kaufman sent me the 30 (I tried to narrow it down, but just couldn’t!) 1/4 yard cuts of Kona solids that I requested and I immediately set to work.

I’m not sure if there’s a tutorial out there for this particular block – I cut and sewed mine how I thought it made the most sense (and in a way so I didn’t have to individually piece all those little squares!) and the blocks were surprisingly fun to put together. So much so that I very quickly decided that I should go big and make it king sized.

Once I decided to go big, I felt no need to limit my number of solids and very quickly added at least another 30 colors for variety (there are so many Kona solids that it’s hard to limit oneself) . It’s sort of surprising how much fabric you need for a king sized quilt! I had to reorder twice to have enough for my 64 blocks.

I am absolutely in love with the finished quilt top. I definitely will not be quilting this one on my own – it’s big! – but I did attempt to take these photos on my own after a big snowstorm. It involved shoveling paths and standing on ladders and freezing fingers and a wet quilt and in the end you not only can’t see the entire quilt, but you also can’t even really tell that’s snow. Oh well. Better photos to come once it’s finished, hopefully!

Anyone interested in a tutorial? As I said, there very well may be many tutorials out there for this exact block, so let me know if you’ve found one, but if not, I’m happy to show you how I constructed my blocks.

p.s. it also needs a name, so if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear!