30 Pearls {Quilt Top}

I'm excited to share my finished quilt top for our June Island Batik Ambassador project!

First and foremost, I love that my original vision worked out so well with these fabrics and was so simple to create! Even though I'm a nervous pinner for sewing curves, the blocks were quick and easy. 

The one change from my original design is that I pieced the top and bottom sashing (which makes the quilt square rather than rectangular) instead of it being single pieces. This was out of necessity (since I was working with fat eighths!) and I think it looks great.

Here's the top together:

And for comparison, here's the original design!

Since I didn't want to buy something as a separate backing for this quilt (since it's going to be a wall hanging), I pulled some of my 5" Island Batik stash builder strips, one of the fat eighths that I didn't use in the quilt top, and a larger piece of green yardage (some of which I had used in my Blocked Rainbow quilt).

The green piece of yardage wasn't quite big enough on its own for the backing, so I needed it to "grow" a little bit. I sewed the 5" strips end to end and then added four slice-and-insert strips to my green yardage, two going in each direction.

I like the added interest on the back, even if I'll be the only one that knows it's there! Now to work in earnest on quilting the top! I'm planning to use white thread in the "pearls" and colored thread in the background. I actually have about a dozen different pink, purple, red, and orange-hued spools of Aurifil that I've been auditioning! I've also been studying Leah Day's quilting gallery for quilting ideas.

Happy Friday and happy sewing! Sharing at Finished or not Friday and Linky Tuesday!