Supernova quilt

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OMG, Blogger's back! Did we all survive the outage? Just barely? Good, because I've got a quilt to show you.

My Supernova quilt is complete. If this is your first visit here, a little background: This is my own design, which I originally made with the Hope Valley line. I had a few requests for the pattern, but since I've never written a pattern before, I decided to turn it into a quilt along. Click here to see this quilt in all the phases of its construction and to learn how to make your own, if you are so inclined. I made this version from a mix of fabric lines, in a color palette loosely inspired by Heather Ross's Mendocino line. The background is Kona Coal and the binding is Michael Miller's Ta-Dot in Sunny Yellow.

There is a chance I may have gone slightly overboard with the quilting on this. : ) Dense straight-line quilting is something I've been wanting to try for a long time now, and I do like how it turned out. But while I was actually doing the quilting? I was this close to checking myself into the county mental health complex. So, while I'm happy with the end result, I don't think I'll be returning to this well very often. If at all.

To make the converging lines pattern, I marked the center diagonals and started by quilting a big "X" from corner to corner. Then, using that "X" as my guide, I worked the quilt one quarter at a time, going from one edge/corner, up to the center, and back down to the other edge/corner, always using the previously stitched line as my guide for the next line. Sounds like a good way to do it, right? Wrong. My quilt got a bit distorted as I worked. The center of each edge of the quilt got pushed out, and as a result, the top is no longer square. It also won't lie quite flat! I'm not sure if it's a basting problem, or because I wasn't always stitching from the center out, or a combination of the two. Either way—not so good.

But I am very glad I did it—it's been a learning experience, that's for sure. And the fact that it doesn't lie flat doesn't actually bother me all that much, since it's not going on a bed. I love the colors, love the back, and love the look of the mental-institution quilting—now that it's finally done and I've stopped cursing at it.

But most of all, I LOVE that so many of you made Supernovas along with me. I really enjoyed taking you through the process of making this quilt. And I learned a lot about pattern writing in the process. It's been an invaluable experience! So without further ado, let's check out all the finished 'Novas:

supernova complete
Supernova!
Supernova Quilt Finish
Supernova
Supernova
Oceanic Supernova Front
Supernova Finished...Yay!
Supernova, finished
Completed Babynova front
Supernova complete 5.2.11
Supernova Quilt Along-Done!
100_1402
Supernova quilt finished!
Supernova full shot
Black Hole (a Supernova variation)
Supernova complete
Hooty Supernova - finished!
SupernovaFinished
Super Nova
Finished Supernova

Thank you for quilting along with me! If you haven't finished your quilt, or even if you haven't started yet, I hope you will still do so. The Flickr group will remain open, discussion can continue in the forums there.

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WIP Wednesday #27

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WIP Wednesday #26