My first quilt is now complete; a mini quilt that was originally for our quilt guild Madrona Road Challenge!!! I decided that it is, also perfect timing to take advantage of the  Bloggers Quilt Festival, and live the experience first hand.

As mentioned in my previous blog, the center block designs stemmed from tiles pictured in a recent dwell magazine. The overall design was influenced by this Portuguese tiled bath floor:

I loved the blue framing of the black and white tiled bottom of the bath (at least what looks like a bath). So taking that concept I came up with this quilt top using the madrona road fabric and a lot of blue kona cottons, and a splash of yellow and a single crimson tile.

I machine bound my quilt in navy. I love how the darker edge makes the rest of the quilt pop and also pulls out the darker blue prints.

The backing consists of navy blue kona cotton, with a stripe of Madrona road blocks and a stripe of ash grey and yellow solids. The stripes were made from scrapes left over from the front and I improvised the piecing.

I kept the quilting relatively simple. To highlight the blocks, I used yellow cotton for the edge and diagonals of this section (see above the details). I then used light grey cotton to quilt rectangles from the center to the diagonals in a web like radiating pattern. The blue tile framed edges I just used lines to highlight the rows – again in light grey cotton.

I love the crinkly look of the quilt after it was washed and dried. Here are some more summary details:

Finished size:  ~33″ x 28″
Pattern:  Improvised and designed by me
Fabric:  Madrona Road (7 fat eighths), Kona Cotton blues, ash grey, crimson and gold
Binding: Machine sewn
Quilting:  Simple lines, created with my walking foot on my brother sewing machine

I hope to add new photos once it stops raining here :-).