kona cotton – Quilt Moments

Hi fellow quilters,

Today is my turn on the Robert Kaufman’s 30 Quilts for 30 Years blog hop to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Kona cotton.

I was so excited to be invited to participate in this fun project. I’ve enjoyed reading the other designers blog posts about their quilts and getting to know more about the designers and Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Can’t believe that there are now a whopping 303 Kona colors. Isn’t that amazing!

I would like to talk about the process of making my quilt and I have a giveaway, too, so keep reading for a chance to win!!!

My quilt for the 30th anniversary is called Twister Shimmer.

The original colorway that I used to create the Twister Shimmer pattern (QM135) last year is shown below. I had fun using my Kona color card to choose a range of shades in four colorways. The pattern includes a chart showing the 22 Kona fabric ID#’s. My friend Karen Ytzen pieced the quilt and it was hanging in my booth last year at Houston 2013 quilt market.

For the 30th anniversary version, instead of hand picking Kona colors, Nichole at Robert Kaufman suggested that I feature one of their pre-cut fat quarter bundles. This was a bit of a challenge since I wasn’t sure a bundle would contain enough shades of four colorways needed for the quilt, however, the Sunset fat quarter bundle has a nice variety of shades and can be broken into four groups so I dove into this yummy bundle!

The bundle contains 23 fat quarters. I used 22 of the fat quarters plus Kona Black for the background.

I created a grid of squares following the fabric placement guide. For this 72″ x 72″ throw size quilt, 5″ squares are sewn into a grid and then cut out with the Lil’ Twister tool designed by Marsha Bergren of Country Schoolhouse Designs. This popular tool is very easy to use and quite addictive. It’s so fun creating designs that look difficult yet are very easy to piece. The Twister Shimmer pattern also includes many other quilt sizes. If you use the larger Midi Twister tool and 6-1/2″ squares, you can make a queen or king size quilt. And, if you want to make smaller projects you can use the Primitive Pinwheel or Itty Bitty Primitive Pinwheel by Primitive Gatherings to create a 41″ wallhanging or 23″ miniature.

Here’s some Lil’ Twister cutting in action….

Magically, after cutting out with the Lil’ Twister and sewing the units back together, the square grid turns into the Twister Shimmer quilt!

After completing the quilt top, I sent the quilt off to long arm quilter, Kristi Ryan, who did a wonderful job with the quilting. She used a silver thread in the colors and black thread in the background. Since we were on such a tight deadline and Kristi sent the quilt directly to Robert Kaufman, I haven’t seen the completed quilt yet, just in photos and I really like the results!

Closeups of Kristi’s quilting…

The Twister Shimmer pattern is very versatile and you can play with shades of your favorite colors to achieve the look you want. Play with your Kona color card or Kona fabric stash to create your very own quilt palette. For example, here’s an example of what the quilt looks like using shades of two colors, red and blue, rather than four different colors, and adding white for accent. Wouldn’t this make a great patriotic quilt?

Ask for the Twister Shimmer pattern at your favorite quilt shop (they can order it from distributors or me) or you can order it here.

Thank you for visiting my blog and have fun with the blog hop and enjoy all the designers posts. The complete schedule is listed in my last blog post. One of my favorite quilts in the Lookbook is Raceway by Alyssa Lichner. I love the curves and the overlapping effect.

Robert Kaufman is doing a grand prize giveaway at the end of the blog hop which will include 3 of my twister patterns that work great with Kona solids and RK blenders like Fusions including Twister Shimmer, Twister Sparkler, and Twister Illusions which are all shown here: