Kona Solids Challenge

I started this quilt last year in a sponsored challenge from Robert Kaufman through the Modern Quilt Guild.  We were supplied with Kona Solids Charm Packs to make a quilt all in solids.  Our local guild ended up getting the brights pack, which was great because that would have been my pick anyway! I used every piece in my charm pack, counting a grey and a white square that both ended up on the back.  Embarrassingly, this challenge was due around July or August of last year, and I just finished it this week.  Woops.

I really wanted my colors to flow from one to another to take advantage of the rainbow of colors in the charm pack.  I ended up going with this layout, which I liked best for the colors, but as I finished the quilt I started to like the layout less and less.  I'm not sure it really makes sense to me. However, I think that the block has some awesome potential in other layouts as well.  I started this design based on a whirly-gig block, and I thought it would be a bit cool and funky if I cut a freehand curve on each piece instead of a straight line.   I call this quilt the "Two Margaritas Quilt," after my mental state when I came up with the block idea... 

I used the method described here to do the curves.  If you decide to make a block like this, make a note that you really should start with rectangles that are 1/2" longer on one side.  That way, after the seam you will have a square without having to trim a bunch of fabric.  Since I was using charm packs, I cheated on this by adding 1" length to my grey fabric.  It's not obvious, but overall the blocks are a bit more than half grey.  Neat, huh?

My favorite part about the quilt is definitely the quilting, which is done in echos from the edges between the color and the grey.  Where my echos came together, I improvised little funky designs that turned out really fun.   In the end, the quilting probably wouldn't have happened without the odd layout I chose, so I have made my peace with it!  I will definitely be doing quilting like this again in the future, but I'll stick to small quilts for it because the constant turning is SUPER irritating... the reason it took me 8 months to finish this little guy. 

A big thanks to Robert Kaufman for sponsoring this challenge and to the Modern Quilt Guild for organizing everything!