Sunset Radiance

I've seen the quilts from the annual quilt along hosted by Sandra of mmm! Quilts for the last several years, but never joined in.  This year, though, the design really spoke to me.  And when I learned it could be made with a jelly roll, I knew the stars had aligned.  I had a strip pack of Island Batik's Sunset Blooms that was essentially burning a hole in my pocket, if fabric can do that.

The hardest part of the Centered pattern for me was figuring out the placement of my fabrics.  I used Sandra's coloring chart to figure out placement of the three color families in Sunset Blooms (teals, purples, and yellows) but didn't choose specific fabrics until I cut each block group.  The Quilt Along was perfectly paced and I really like the size of the finished quilt--I like my throw quilts smaller than many, so the 40" square seems really versatile for me--could still be a baby or kid quilt, but can also go over the legs when sitting on the couch or in bed. 

I absolutely love the finished quilt!  If I were starting over, I might keep each corner with exactly the same fabrics instead of the mirrored blocks that I ended up with--I know you can tell it's a little on the scrappy side in the corners where the fabric colors are the same but the prints are different, and I'm not sure I like that as much as I would a consistent corner.  But the limitations of working with a precut is I only had so much of each print. And who knows, maybe if I had done each corner the same I would be wishing I had symmetry!

Bottom Left

Bottom Right

I named this Sunset Radiance, to honor both the name of the fabric line and how the pattern radiates out from the center.  I wanted the quilting to also radiate out from the center.  My original plan was straight lines radiating from the center, much like Sandra did on her original, but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work that I could do and achieve the look I wanted.  So I did a large spiral that starts in the center instead--always one of my favorite quilting motifs, and it's fairly fast to do.  It also gave me the look I wanted of the quilting radiating outward from the center.

I set finishing the top for Sunset Radiance as my One Monthly Goal with Patty at Elm Street Quilts, with the understanding that I was really hoping to complete it.  And I did!  This is my 18th completed project in 2020.