New York Beauty quilt - finished!

Here it is - my New York Beauty quilt that I estimate took around 150 hours to make, over a 2 year period. It's from a Karen K. Stone pattern. The fabrics are orientals, batiks and some hand dyes. I have named the quilt 'Oriental Beauty'.

I really enjoyed piecing all of the blocks. Each of the 30 blocks has a different background fabric and then fabrics for the arcs and spikes are matched with that background fabric. This involved sorting fabrics into colour and then by lights/mediums/darks. Each block needed contrast so that the spikes would stand out. What fun! And it also necessitated a lot of fabric shopping! :-)



The pattern came with foundations for the spiked arcs and
freezer paper arcs and backgrounds, so that the blocks would
go together accurately.

Here is a detail photo. There are a number of blocks that have
a little person peeking out. All of the people look towards the
centre of the quilt.

The outer border of the quilt was drawn up on greaseproof
paper, as per the directions in the pattern. It actually took a
lot of time to sew the borders. It would take an hour to go
15 cm (6 inches), as each spike was quite long and was vertical on the pattern.

A fortnight ago, I took 'Oriental Beauty' to my quilt group, Coorparoo Quilters, for show and tell. It was so nice to hear the 'oohs and ahhs'. :-) As I was going to quilt group after work, I also took the quilt to show everyone at work.

I'm really happy with this quilt. The pattern lived up to the dream I saw in it!