Mini-quilt Monday: Orange + Aqua Starbursts

This weekend, I finished up another mini-quilt. The blocks for this quilt were made by the ladies of To Bee Orange and Aqua, a 6-month quilting bee focused on the colors orange and aqua. I guess that was pretty self-explanatory by the name of the bee, though, wasn't it?

I have found that I am most happy with bee blocks that don't require perfect piecing, so I asked each person in the bee to make me two 6.5" starburst blocks using either Ashley (of Film in the Fridge)'s tutorial or my paper-pieced tutorial. I got the inspiration for the quilt from Krista (of Spotted Stone Studio)'s Big Orange Wall Quilt.

I went a bit out of my comfort zone and didn't include any neutral solids in this quilt.

...but I evened it out with the quilt back, which is just plain old Kona ash, and the binding, which is Kona coal.

For the quilting, I tried a really densely quilted spiral inspired by Malka (A Stitch in Dye)'s work. (I love this pillow Malka just finished.)

The lines are only 1/4" apart from one another. I really like the texture that this added. It even makes the solid back aesthetically appealing.

The quilting took forever, though, especially considering that the quilt is only 18" x 24" in size! And it was pretty challenging to get perfectly curved lines. I felt like the result was worth the time, though.

The other fun thing about this quilt was that I finally broke into my free sample of Aurifil thread that I mentioned getting at the Sewing Summit in this post. Aurifil is an Italian thread company that makes low lint-producing, high-quality cotton thread. I had never heard of this brand, but everyone at the Sewing Summit was raving about it. I even heard the phrase, "It will change your life!" thrown around by quite a few women.

Well, let me say this—I did really like the thread. It was noticeably stronger than my stand-by Gütermann thread and has a beautiful sheen. But, it did not change my life. What has changed my life is Jesus. And—much less substantial, but still true—my Bernina 440QE sewing machine. If you want either of those stories, email me.

Thanks Dorrie, Tina, Beth, and Alisha for helping to make this quilt possible!