The fourth step on the Journey to Nebula is the Rock Candy Pattern.
Julie of Jaybird Quilts said this table topper was the must do pattern on the journey. Well, it did not disappoint! This might be my favorite so far.
Having done the Seaside Pattern earlier, the cutting went a lot smoother this time around. I think its fair to say all the lessons I learned on Seaside definitely came in handy with Rock Candy. Here's a link to my post on Seaside.
I think the biggest challenge here was keeping the pieces in order. Needless to say some of my colors got rearranged during the sewing process and I didn't notice until it was all put together. I'll have to do a better job on the next one.. and yes there will be another one.. Its already cut and pieced..Here's a sneak peak.
Here's the original layout for reference.
I used a charm pack of Moda Grunge fabric and separated them into colors. The cool colors and the muted colors. I had some extra fat quarters for the orange background and thought this would make a perfect table topper for Thanksgiving.
Keeping with the fall-theme inspiration, I decided to try my hand a free motion quilting with a leaf motif. I am novice at FMQ but this was a small project to practice with a simple motif.
The biggest take away from this pattern is to take your time sewing.
Its easy to stretch the pieces and have the final product not match up.
I used the 60 degree line on my quilting ruler to trim and square up the final pieced top. The other thing that helped me in this layout was the the brown colors formed a star in the middle and I was not too concerned about the diamond points matching. However, if you choose contrasting colors, the center point is definitely one area you want to be careful lining up when you sew.
Jaybird has a tutorial on binding the 120 degree angles here. This was very helpful in the last step to complete the hexagon shape of the topper.
Its perfect for the season and I've already put it on my coffee table.
I very happy with how quickly this came together in one afternoon of quilting. Order take out.. I promise its worth it to quilt all afternoon. You'll be happy too.
As soon as I get the second quilted I'll update my post.
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