A Fortuitous Delay: My Pantone Quilt Challenge Entry

I came at this challenge in a very circuitous way. Around the same time the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge was announced, my daughter brought home a bookmark that she'd painted at school. And guess what? She'd used lots of "radiant orchid," as well as some nice warm greys. It inspired me to doodle a mini improv quilt design with dark skies and blustery snow blowing from the left, slowly blending to a spring field of purple flowers and clear skies on the right. I pulled fabric and got started.

my original fabric pull and the bookmark my daughter painted

Now, having recently "mastered" (over-confident much? ha!) curved improv piecing on my Cosmic mini quilt, I figured I could do this new very curvy improv no problem. Um... yeah, problem. Lots of problems! It started off ok, and then slowly became a mess of warped seams and not-quite-what-I'd-envisioned. I scrapped it and moved on to the many other projects I had lined up this month, and didn't think I'd find time to circle back around.

Fast forward to this past Monday. Having confirmed my appointment just a few days earlier, I eagerly arrived at my LQS to get started longarming my Wee Wander quilts that I've been hurrying to finish in time for my daughters' two April birthdays... only to find out they had me on the schedule for NEXT Monday! Big mix up! Now the earliest date that I can fit in with the store is a week into April, so one will be a belated quilt, but one will still be on time. I was so excited to finish and share them with you all, but it'll be a few more weeks. Darn!

please excuse the very wrinkled duvet and shams, but I wanted to show that the little splash of teal in the floral matches just perfectly!

Silver lining? My entire day freed up, and I had time to start something new. I've been itching to make a purple quilt for my bed this year (never mind the Pantone color - I just really *love* purple!) but I have my heart set on - you guessed it - a block with curved piecing that I recently fell in love with. So what did I do? Made a practice block and turned it into a cute 18" x 18" throw pillow for our bed! After I finished, I realized I'd used 7 different purples and 3 different prints, and those happen to be my two most favorite numbers of all time, plus I easily worked in some teal to coordinate with our duvet, and some hot pink because hey, what plays better than purple and pink? 

In the end, my terrible scheduling error Monday turned into a really wonderful 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge entry quite by fortuitous accident : ) And I found out the block is very doable, curves and all, so now it's time to start pulling for my new pet project...

Have you whipped up anything for the challenge? Are you feeling all the gorgeous shades of purple popping up thanks to the Pantone pick or do you have another favorite you're using a lot lately? And if you haven't yet, hop over and check out the amazing entries at Play-Crafts and On the Windy Side!