In early July I opened a newsletter from Purple Daisies Quilting and fell in love with the Ombré Lotus pattern featured on their website. It is a Needle in a Hayes Stack pattern featuring Ombré Bloom by V and Co. for Moda. I had a Fairy Dust Jelly Roll on hand which has a similar color distribution as Ombré Bloom. I had to order a couple extra Ombré Fairy Dust half-yards to have all the necessary colors available for this quilt. Below is a pic at the local university where I like to photograph my large quilts. This one measures 81″ x 81″.

I decided to paper-piece the units to make the quilt top. My main reason is that I did not want to trim the width of the jelly roll strips from 2.5″ to 2.25″ as was instructed in the pattern. So I made the choice to use my untrimmed jelly roll strips on an 8-inch equilateral triangle paper template which is a bit bigger than the pattern template. I found I was just a little short on fabric, so I purchased another Fairy Dust jelly roll knowing that I will use the leftovers for another quilt this year. It took me awhile to figure out the best way to match the odd angles of the triangles so the seams lined up, and using a basting stitch first and making any necessary adjustments before sewing the regular-stitch seam dramatically increased my precision. Here’s a close-up of the very center of the quilt top.

The finished size of the original Ombré Lotus pattern is 62″ x 62″. Mine is quite a bit larger due to using a larger template size and as well as much wider borders (8 1/2″ rather than 3 1/2″). I know the quilt will shrink when I wash it, so I deliberately oversized it, so it will continue to look good on my bed. Here’s a pic with my Ombré Planner wall hanging behind it.

The background fabric is Kona Titanium, and the binding is Turquoise Fairy Dust. Before I started quilting, I never realized how many different shades of grey there are. Some day I’m going to have to make some custom shams to replace my store-bought grey shams, so my greys go together better. I also love the dragonfly backing for this quilt in the photo below.

The dragonflies are easier to see in the close-up below as is the pretty Sea of Stars quilting done by Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting.

I love how she sent my quilt back to me with a ribbon tied around it:

Linking up to:

• TGIFF hosted this week by Sandra at mmm Quilts. (And check out Sandra’s gorgeous The Light Within Quilt.
• Finished (or Not) Friday hosted by Alycia Quilts
• Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict