Half-square Triangle with Magenta & Friends--done!

I'm very happy with this finished quilt (38x44). My hand-dyed fabric, quilted with a teal Invisafil thread, a very thin polyester thread that sinks nicely into the fabric. I quilted this simply with parallel lines, following the example from SewKatieDid. I ended up putting the lines vertical instead of horizontal, because I made a back that was large horizontal stripes, and I didn't want to worry about horizontal quilting lines not matching up on the back.

For the back, I used fabric that came out poorly, with water spots, because of my not taking care with the flat-dyeing method. But hey, they look OK on the back.

The binding: I basted four different colors on the quilt, trying to decide which one to use. My husband David suggested I use all four. Good idea!

I was thinking I would give this quilt away as a baby quilt, but I think I'll keep it as a wall hanging for myself. I find the colors very appealing, as well as the combination of structure and randomness.

Working with magenta and friends

I had a stretch of four full days of quilting with friends in the Chicago area, and was able to work from start to finish on a half-square triangle quilt top like this one by Katie of "Sew Katie Did." Since not all my fabric dyed up well enough to use, and because I wasn't sure how the quilt would look in such a different color palette, I just made a small baby quilt (38x44). I'm pleased with how it turned out. I love the quiet palette Katie used for her quilt, but I think the format works well with these highly contrasting bright colors with black as well. I was also pleasantly surprised that the improvised placement of the triangles went very quickly. I made squares of each color with each color, and then I just started putting them up on the design wall. After placing all the squares, I spent perhaps another 10 minutes or so making small adjustments, and that was it. It helped that a couple of the other quilters took a look also, and confirmed that the arrangement was fine. I think if I'd been by myself at home, I might have kept fine-tuning longer.

Back from the retreat, I'm finishing up some projects. First to be done is this quilt, made a year ago with my friend Kay, when she was visiting me from Boston. We made the blocks together, and then I did the quilting some months ago. But what color binding to use? I saw Kay last weekend, and she decided on red. I think it looks great!