Kaleidoscope Quilt, subtitled Circle Skirts

This was made in an Iowa Star Quilt Store workshop circa 2003. I bought the border fabric, then picked out a few new fat quarters of every color I saw in the border, choosing light and dark values, and added some from my stash. It was a challenge to piece but this is probably the favorite quilt I’ve made. I loved picking out the fabrics, making different combinations and I love looking at the “dancing” patterns. I love mixing plaids and stripes.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want color value detail. I did make sure to keep with the dark and light values within the right spots in a block, but experimented with using different fabrics within one block. For example, all the blocks are made of the same pattern, depending on the color value used, either a X or a + seems to dominate. Sometimes the legs of the X are light and sometimes they’re dark. Dark and light are what make this quilt pattern, not color. For example, look at the 3rd row down, 2nd block across — the legs of the + are of 2 different fabrics, a brownish red and a reddish gray. What’s important is that all 4 legs are dark and that the all 4 legs of the X part of the block are light. The quilt is pleasing to the eye (if I do say so myself) because the colors do all go together, but the point is, they wouldn’t have to to get the kaleidoscope effect.

Suzanne machine quilted it (of course), in a simple meander. She will correct me if I’m wrong but I’m not sure she had done too many quilts before this.