Brilliant - second quilt finish of 2020

An invitation to my friend Kath's 50th birthday dinner (held last week) meant a frantic scramble through my stash to find the perfect fabrics to create a gift for her. I had about eight days' notice but am on summer holidays (and the weather has been yucky) so was able to get busy putting it together.

This fat quarter pack of Elizabeth Hartman's Rhoda Ruth fabric has been in my stash for a few years from when I was a member of the Moda Modern FQ club for a year; I thought the colours and prints of this set were lots of fun, just like Kath!

 I have had Christa Watson's free Beaded Lanterns pattern in my to-do folder for a while too, and although it is a jelly-roll pattern, I was able to make four lanterns from each fat quarter.  I chose to show up the prints by using a dark charcoal grey solid as the background (which was the only thing I had to buy).

Auditioning backgrounds

I added an extra column of lanterns to the side of the quilt to make it a wider lap quilt (and have still got about 8 lanterns to use for a smaller second quilt at some stage).

Laid out ready for sewing into rows...

I adore this print with the white leopards!

The prints had a good range of animals, florals and geometrics - can you spot the foxes?

This rich crimson/red has giraffe motifs.

I free-motion quilted this 64" x 75" lap quilt/double quilt as per the suggestions Christa makes in the pattern: echo straight lines and large pebbles/bubbles in the background; zigzag loops down the column of lanterns.

The backing is also pieced from my stash - a really cool landmarks of major cities print and a stripe.

The binding is an aqua tone-on-tone print.

I called the quilt 'Brilliant!' as it is so colourful and vibrant - again, just like Kath!

Ready to go!