Colorado Beauty

Since we got back from our Colorado Thanksgiving break, I've been working to finish my very exciting Colorado quilt top. I am very excited to finish and gift this one! I hope it's done in time for Christmas.

I wanted to make a Colorado inspired quilt, and thought it would be a little boring to make a pixelated quilt in the shape of Colorado (a rectangle). I got a lot of inspiration from pinterest, and decided to do a quilt that looked a little like a map of Colorado, with the desert, mountains and plains.
 

I started by making these improve/scrappy squares in different color groups. Red was for the western desert/red rocks, purple & blue for the mountains, and green & orange for the plains. I haven't been quilting for long, so I was very surprised at how many scraps I had from the last 6 months..

 

I turned all of those squares into HSTs and started playing on my design wall. My plan was to have a star where Denver was, and have the rest of the HSTs arranged randomly on the rest of the quilt.

While I was playing, I realized I had made a Colorado Beauty block in the center. I decided to keep it--it went perfectly with my theme :) and I drew up the plan for the entire top.

To plan the top, I printed out a map of Colorado and drew a grid on it. Then marked off my center block (the Colorado Beauty block) in the Denver area. The rest of the HSTs just framed it.

I finished up the top and basted the quilt today:

It was hard to get a good picture in my living room, but I'm really excited about this one.

This quilt represents a lot of firsts for me--my first scrappy quilt and my first roygbiv quilt. I am also in love with the design! I love the colors, the layout, and how this represents Colorful Colorado so well. I am already planning another one for myself, though I don't think I'll do all of the scrappy squares. I need a good rainbow bundle.  

I'll leave you with one more photo of Colorado before I go:

The Flatirons in Boulder

 Happy Sunday!

This week I'll link up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story,  WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced,  NTT Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation, and the Weekly Inspiration Linky Party at Nini and The Sea

And before I forget, I've also joined instagram (kateyates8). I've been posting a lot more of my WIP posts there, because I'm a lazy blogger :)