Online Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Radiant Poppies

My second entry in the October Online Bloggers' Quilt Festival is my Radiant Poppies quilt, and I'm entering it into the Hand Quilted section.

I made this quilt for the Pantone Radiant Orchid challenge last year.  I used Elizabeth Hartman's Kitchen Window pattern, but stopped at three rows so it would be a lap quilt. I chose the Joel Dewberry Poppies fabric as my feature fabric, and worked out from there.

I hand quilted around each of the window panes, but then also quilted diagonal lines across the quilt with Perle 8.  I enjoy hand quilting with Perle 8, and I love the finished look that it gives. If you're interested in hand quilting I recommend you join the Celebrate Hand Quilting group on Facebook.  They're a great group of people (men and women), always willing to help other quilters.

This quilt is 52" x 52" and you can read more about it here in my original blog post.

I'll leave you with a view of the back - I just had to use up those beautiful Joel Dewberry poppies.

Thank you for visiting.

Voting now open in the Pantone Radiant Orchid challenge

Entries have closed, and public voting is now open in the Pantone Challenge.

My Pantone Challenge quilt entry

There are 3 categories - large quilts, mini quilts and quilt tops only. The top three quilts in each category will be decided by judges, but there's also a viewers' choice which is open for voting now. (not sure when voting closes, but winners will be announced on Wednesday 26 March, so it's only open for a few days.)

All you have to do is to visit the Pantone Challenge website and click on the little heart in the top right hand corner of the link to your favourite quilt. Of course I'd be delighted if you voted for mine (which is number 4 in the quilts category). However there are so many other lovely quilts there you'll have a hard decision deciding who to vote for.

Remember it's just one vote per category. Have fun looking at all the Radiant Orchid quilts.

2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge: Radiant Orchid - My finished quilt.

I've finished my Pantone Quilt Challenge quilt and here it is. It's a hand quilted lap quilt measuring 52" by 52". I'll use it every night in the winter when I'm watching TV and stitching.

Kitchen Window in Radiant Orchid

Kitchen Window

The back pieced from fabrics used on the quilt top

When I first read about the Pantone Quilt Challenge, I thought, 'I'd like to try that'. 
I think it's the colour that drew me in. If it had been mustard or brown I wouldn't have been at all interested. But purple! Count me in. 

I din't know what I was going to make initially, but I had been browsing through some modern quilting books and had seen some interesting designs. Before I'd even settled on a design I started shopping for fabrics.

Pristine Poppy in Magenta

I went shopping at my local quilt shop Nancy's, and the first fabric that I liked for the challenge was from  Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill range - Pristine Poppy in magenta.  I snapped that up and some complimentary solids (which have ended up on the back rather than the front).

Having decided on my feature fabric, it was time to settle on a pattern. I chose Kitchen Window by Elizabeth Hartman, from her book The Practical Guide to Patchwork: New Basics for the Modern Quiltmaker. I'm really pleased that I chose that pattern because it's certainly highlighted the feature fabrics and left plenty of space for the purple sashing.

Kitchen Window

I knew that I needed some more fabrics to fill in the windows, and some darker sashing for the edges of the windows, so I visited Stitchbird (also in Wellington) and that's where I found the orange and the pink spots.

I looked up Joel Dewberry's range online, and saw the Primrose and Hourglass fabrics from the Notting Hill range. I ordered a fat quarter of each of them, thinking that they would work well too.

Finally I got the purple spot at Piece by Piece, another quilt shop in Wellington.

To complete my round trip of all the quilting shops in Wellington, I went back to Nancy's and got the dark purple for the window sashing, and Pepper Cory's purple solid for the borders and sashing.

I hand quilted in the ditch with regular quilting cotton, but I also quilted some diagonal lines across the whole quilt in Perle 8 to add interest.

I've really enjoyed this challenge and I'm really pleased with my quilt.Thank you to the organisers - Adrianne from On the Windy Side and Anne from Playcrafts.

You can see many more Radiant Orchid quilts on the Flickr page.

I'll be linking up everywhere with this one:
Sew Cute Tuesday with Blossom Heart Quilts
WOW with Esther
Needle n  Thread Thursday with Kelly
Finish it up Friday with Crazy mom Quilts
Can I get a Whoop Whoop with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

The facts:

The pattern is Kitchen Window by Elizabeth Hartman, from her book The Practical Guide to Patchwork: New Basics for the Modern Quiltmaker.

The feature fabric is from Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill range - Pristine Poppy in magenta. I've also included two other fabrics from that range - Primrose in magenta and Hourglass in tangerine.

The sashing and border fabric is a shot cotton by Pepper Cory.

The finished quilt measures 52" x 52".

2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge - Radiant Orchid

I've never entered a quilt challenge before, but I've decided to enter the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge - Radiant Orchid. You can read all about it by clicking on the button on the right hand side of my blog.

My main reason for entering is that I just love the colour. I had a quick look in my wardrobe and found the following:

my personal collection of Radiant Orchid

Yes, I've got plenty of clothes that match the colour scheme, but strangely enough I haven't used these colours in my quilts to date. I have made a few canvas work designs in these colours, but no quilts. So now I'm out shopping for fabrics!!

I think I've settled on a design, but I'll keep it to myself at this stage. This challenge only runs for two months, so all will be revealed on 26 March. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else does with Radiant Orchid as their main colour. The rules are really loose, so there will be a wide variety of finished projects to view.