Applewood Quilts Etc.: Summer Kaleidoscope Quilt

My daughter wanted a summer-weight quilt for her bed and I'd been playing around with some REALLY bright/busy/colorful jellyroll strips so we had a meeting of the minds and her bed now has a new quilt.

The jelly roll is called Kaleidoscope from Free Spirit and I had a charm pack of plain white so I figured I'd combine the two and see what I could create. This is one of the few times I've had a vision in my head but no actual pattern to follow. I was winging it and making it up as I went.

I started by laying out the strips and just worked in order as they came off the roll. I sliced the charm pack in half creating 2 1/2" rectangles. Then I used angled piecing to create a triangle within each strip and mirrored it for the next strip.

I kept stitching strips and rectangles/triangles, placing the white diamond shapes freely across the surface. I'd splice strips or leave full width as I went without a real plan. Once I'd gone through the stack with one of each color, I asked Jess how she'd prefer it to continue and she opted to have me do the entire set in reverse/mirror to the end. Still randomly inserting the triangles/diamonds.

Gypsy was testing the top for comfort

Once I had the strips done, I felt it was too narrow for a bed quilt. Just about 43" wide. I decided to order a yard of the white and add some borders as well as a side panel. I used a few more of the charm squares and almost ever last scrap of the prints to create a free-form sort of extension down one side.

As a final finish I added a narrow white border around the entire thing. Jess chose a cheery yellow mottled backing and a swirly quilting design. I had just received some new fun variegated colors of King Tut quilting thread and we found a great match to use for the top and a So Fine! yellow that matched the backing to use in the bobbin. I love Superior Threads!
So onto the frame it went and I think I managed a record of getting it loaded, quilted, and bound in just 3 days!