Quilt to complete the kitchen makeover

Buddy & I painted the kitchen over a year ago. At that time, I made some temporary window treatments. Then, about a month ago, I made some new valances for the kitchen. Next, I decided to recreate a quilt from a book that I checked out from the library called Color harmony for quilts : a quiltmaker's guide to exploring color / Weeks Ringle, Bill Kerr.
Author: Ringle, Weeks. Imprint:Gloucester, MA : Rockport Publishers, 2002. (Buddy's been doing a good job of seeing that I make it to the library to check out books instead of going to Barnes & Noble.) One of the quilts featured in the book is called Raindrops. I recalled really liking the quilt and its color scheme from when I checked the book out in the past. I decided to make a similar quilt for the kitchen wall which had a large empty space above the chest of drawers that I refinished a few years ago.

I began by ordering a selection solid cottons from e-quilter.com. I began by trying to arrange 12" squares and quickly determined that there must be a better approach. I then cut out small 3"x3" squares and quarter circles and arranged them until I was relatively satisfied with the color scheme. It seems that this should be rather simple given that I had a book to follow but I found that wasn't necessarily the case. Here's my 9"x12" mini quilt.

Next, I made the quilt top out of 12"x12" squares and 6"quarter circles. At this point, I'm still second guessing the color choices.

Then, I prepared the quilt sandwich and began machine quilting. All of the quarters, halves and circles were quilted first. These are supposed to resemble the ripples caused by raindrops falling on water.

I then free-motioned quilted the remainder of the quilt using a stippled design. I began liking the color choice more once some texture was added.

After sewing on the binding, I washed and dryed the quilt. This is the point at which the textures really emerge.

The quilt is displayed in my kitchen on a decorative drapery rod (thanks to Buddy's help). I think it illustrates my kitchen's color scheme very clearly. It reminds me of sea glass & good times on and near the water.
In this photo, you can see the aloe vera plant on the left that Karen gave me a few years ago. It seems quite happy because I have followed her directions and have given it little water. The plant on the right grew from a cutting that I got from the Christmas Cactus that belonged to Buddy's Mom.

Guess this means that the kitchen makeover that began over a year ago is somewhat complete.