A Feminine, But Not Girly, Finish

This week I finished my second Korea-inspired quilt! Woohoo! The specific inspiration for this one was a railing at one of the palaces in Seoul, which is why I'm still calling it Gung Mun which means Palace Gate. I suppose I should call it Palace Railing but my Korean vocabulary is quite limited...

The inspiration

Anyway, here's the finished product:

It was finally sunny this morning so I could snap a pic!

Pattern: Designed by me! I made a tutorial for it and everything.
Finished Size: 45"x60"
Fabric: The center of each block is a fabric I got in Korea and the design was sort of made to showcase it. The peach, aqua, and white are all by Moda and found at my LQS. The backing is from the Perfectly Perched line by Laurie Wisbrun for Robert Kaufman, and for binding I did a two color magic binding deal with the peach and a marbled pink that I had lying around from another [currently unfinished] project.

You can see the quilting lines pretty well from the back

Quilting: straight line quilting to mirror the lines in the white using a variegated pink for the top and an aqua for the bobbin. This is the lightest quilting I've ever done by a long shot! In fact, at some point I might end up popping a few more lines in for good measure.
Batting: Quilter's Dream Puff - I haven't washed it yet, but I am expecting an epic crinkle.

magic binding and straight-ish line quilting

My favorite thing about this quilt is the way the colors turned out. It is the most feminine quilt I have made so far, but it doesn't feel girly. This is a grown woman's quilt!

Now if only I could convince the cats of that fact...

Linking to Finish it up Friday at crazymomquilts! For some unknown reason, I'm also entering this quilt into the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Throw Quilt category.

Gung Mun (궁 문) Tut

This is my first tutorial/pattern whatever so sorry in advanced if it's a little... scattered. Anyway, I'm going to show you how to make this:

So that you can make this:

What you need for each block:
1 4.5" square of center fabric
1 1.5"xWOF (minmum 28") strip for inner color (aqua)
      -cut 2 1.5"x9.5" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x4.5" strips
1 1.5"xWOF (minimum 35") strip for outer color (peach)
      -cut 4 1.5"x2.5" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x2" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x10.5" strips
1 5"xWOF (minimum 24") strip for background (white)
      -cut 4 2" squares
      -cut 4 5"x2.5" rectangles
      -cut 4 4.5"x2.5" rectangles

It should look like this:

For piecing, I find it easiest to work from both ends at once.

1. Sew all the short outer fabric strips to their corresponding background pieces. Iron seams open for best results (I didn't, but I should have!).

2. Sew those units to their respective inner or outer fabric strips, again pressing open the seams.

3. Attach small side units to the center square

4. Attach top and bottom

5. Attach the sides and you're done! (Finished size 10"x15")

If you want to make more than one block at a time, strip piecing works great, especially for the pink and white pieces (outer and background). If you wanted to use a charm square for the center (and not trim it) the measurements for each block would be:

1 5" square of center fabric

1 1.5"xWOF (minmum 31") strip for inner color (aqua)
      -cut 2 1.5"x10.5" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x5" strips
1 1.5"xWOF (minimum 36.5") strip for outer color (peach)
      -cut 4 1.5"x2.5" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x2.25" strips
      -cut 2 1.5"x11" strips
1 5.25"xWOF (minimum 24.5") strip for background (white)
      -cut 4 2.25" squares
      -cut 4 5"x2.5" rectangles
      -cut 4 5.25"x2.5" rectangles

For a finished size of 10.5"x16"