Pantone Quilts Challenge: We have a top

Green is my favorite color.

I spend the majority of my free time quilting.

Um, hello Emerald Quilts Challenge, aka a match made in heaven.

When Ali announced the challenge this year, my gears instantly started turning as far as what to make. Luckily, I've had the below idea simmering in my mind for over a year [literally, this was uploaded to Flickr in Feb 2012]:

It came to my mind after seeing the quilty/bloggy world blow up with Retro Flowers quilts last year that it would be awesome to do a gradient/ombre effect within each petal.

I made my own templates for a 16" finished block. The templates are essentially a drunkard's path block that has then been segmented - much like how I made my Twirling Clamshells pillow. It took me a moment with some math, and then a few more moments with pencil, paper, and a ruler, and voila!

Each segment has three drunkard's path blocks and a log cabin block. Each color measures 1.5" wide at the sides. I traced the templates and then cut the fabric out by hand. My color choices aren't all perfect, but I only had so many green fabrics to work with. After I pulled all my green fabrics that worked, I divided them up and took a black and white picture to check the value.

I think I did ok!

The backgrounds are all low-volume white prints. And my 2nd color [as per the challenge rules] was black, so I added the square into the center as I was stitching the four blocks together. I actually really like the square, because in my opinion it makes it less flowery, and more something else. Don't ask me what else though...

I haven't yet perfected the even seam allowance as I'm sewing around curves, so there are some hairy spots in the blocks if you look closely, but overall I was surprised by how well everything matched up.

Not here though. Sad times.

I plan to back the mini in this awesomely amazing curtain panel that I got at IKEA. I have two panels, and this little quilt will use up about 1/3 of one of them, so I can't wait to use it on another project. It's so perfect!

When I do get to quilting it, I plan to do something very dense, as this 32" square quilt is destined to hang on the wall someday.

Quilt Top Stats:
32" square
Fabrics used: Architextures, Pearl Bracelets, Kona solids, Oval Elements, Annie's Farm Stand, Robert Kaufman Pima cotton dots, Lizzy House Jewels, Peacock Lane, vintage green pin dot from my grandma, etc

*Entered in the Pantone 2013: Emerald Quilts Challenge in the Quilt Top Category

**Linked with Fabric Tuesday and Show and Tell Tuesday :)