Today I’m happy to share my entry for this year’s Pantone Quilt challenge! This is the second time I’ve participated in this fun event hosted by Rebecca Bryan and Sarah Sharp and I had a lot of fun. I fully admit that this year’s color, Living Coral, is not something I would have chosen on my own, but that really helped with the “challenge” part of this, I think!
I named this quilt Beauty Burst, because it is based on the classic Blackford’s Beauty quilt block and because the scattered pieces give such a confetti-like, movement-filled aesthetic. I designed this top a few months ago after reading The Quilter’s Negative Space Handbook by Sylvia Schaefer, and it uses one of the design principles she discusses called disintegration.
(I haven’t written a pattern for this quilt yet; let me know in the comments if you are interested and I’ll see what I can do! But I do have a pattern for a 12″ Blackford’s Beauty block available for $2 in my shop.)
I recolored my original design for this challenge, and I think you’ll agree that I really embraced the CORAL CORAL CORAL. Ha! There are 5 shades of Kona cotton in this quilt top. From lightest to darkest, they are Snow, Ice Peach, Creamsicle, Nectarine, and Coral.
I went back and forth debating whether to fully incorporate each and every piece of the Blackford’s Beauty block, even though many would be the same color — or to just cut larger pieces for the large sections of peach. From the photos, you can easily see that I chose the more time-consuming option! Ha! I questioned my sanity a couple times, but in the end I do really like how all the same-color piecing lets you see the structure of the basic block beneath the larger areas of negative space.
I had planned to get this quilted in time for the challenge deadline, but other projects took priority. (When I do quilt it, I’m planning to do a spiral centered on the block in coral thread.) Thank goodness the challenge has a “Just the Top” category!
Thanks to Rebecca and Sarah for hosting another year of this fun challenge, and I encourage everyone to check out all the entries. There are some really amazing coral quilts out there!
