Kaleidoscope Quilt started in January 2012 - Part 6

My quilt top completed with all the borders, it is time to start quilting.  I started with a basic pattern to serve as a type of stay stitching.

Then I plan to fill the empty spaces of the basic pattern with feathers but I have not decided what to do after that.  Quilting shows up better on the back of the quilt.

I guess the regular posting on this quilts' progress will stop for a couple of weeks (months??) until I finish the quilting.

Kaleidoscope Quilt started in January 2012 - Part 5

With my rows joined I finally had a completed quilt top center – I thought I’d never get here!

Then it was time to audition fabric for the border.  No wait that is a blatant lie.  I really need to use the fabric in my stash as some of these (never used) has lost its charm so I decided to use what I have instead of constantly buying new fabric.  So I had to see which of the colors used in the quilt had enough fabric left to add borders.  It turned out to be the pink. (Quilt folded in quarters on my design wall).

With the pink border attached I saw that the quilt would fit the length of a double bed but needed a little more to the width.  I still had main fabric left and decided to add a fairly wide border to the sides.

Kaleidoscope Quilt started in January 2012 - Part 4

With all my empty spaces filled and having the outer edge straight the tedious job of stitching all these triangles together started and my design wall starts right by the ceiling so in order to sew these I have to get up and down a ladder every time I need the next triangle!  That’s why I don’t go to the gym.

As I continued sewing triangles into rows putting these in order next to each other on the design wall, I spotted this little mishap!  Why don’t I seem to notice these while stitching and only once the unpicking is not a single seam any more?

Seriously concentrating from then on not to repeat the mistake, black cat Sasky, figured out if he climbs against the design wall the little triangles will come flying down.  This turned out to be plenty of fun for a playful cat even though he looks so innocent in this photo.  It was a nightmare having to figure out which triangle needs to go where!

With the triangles sewn into rows I could start joining the rows.

Kaleidoscope Quilt started in January 2012 - Part 3

Even though my 12 larger hexagons were big enough to cover the top of a double bed if I simply added background triangles in the empty spaces, I however still had 12 more of my initial 6 pie hexagons and with no intention of letting these go to waste I played around with what I had; made 3 more original blocks and then used the rest to fill the empty spaces.

After adding purple triangles, the empty spaces in between became less but they are still there around the outer edges.

I simply added more triangles and half triangles to get a straight edge all around.

Kaleidoscope Quilt started in January 2012 - Part 2

So my 24 Kaleidoscope hexagons were not going to cover a double bed and I needed to make it bigger.

If you keep adding the same sized triangles to the first hexagon you’ll always end up with yet another hexagon.  So I added black and blue triangles to 6 of the sides.

Now I could have stopped here, filled the spaces with background triangles and ended up with a Star Quilt but I wanted a hexagon Kaleidoscope, so I added even more triangles to the empty spaces.

Suddenly with the much bigger hexagons 12 of these with a little background triangles added would comfortably fit a double bed.