2025 Kona Color of the Year Expanding Stars Quilt

Today I’m excited to share this Expanding Stars quilt using the brand new 2025 Kona Color of the Year. This year the Robert Kaufman Kona COTY is this deep purple color called Nocturne and it was just announced today!

2025 Kona Color of the Year

The 2025 Kona color of the year is this deep purple color called Nocturne. I debated about using Nocturne as the background of this quilt or as a strong accent color. In the end I went with the accent and paired it with a lighter purple and a contrasting yellow-green. I like how Nocturne makes a strong statement against the natural background of the quilt.

Scroll on down to the bottom if you are curious to see this quilt with Nocturne as the background.

Expanding Stars quilt pattern

I sewed this Expanding Stars quilt up at retreat so I didn’t get many in progress photos. Expanding Stars is made up of half square triangles all made 8 at a time. This makes for a pretty fast assembly.

The colors used in this quilt are: Ivory, Nocturne, Lupine, Ivory, Wasabi and Pepper (not pictured below).

I enjoy sewing up this quilt and it looks good in a variety of colors and fabrics. Expanding Stars came out quite a few years ago. It includes five quilt sizes from baby to king bed size. The scale of the quilt starts off small and grows with each size.

If you label your colors like I did below then it really helps as you make the half square triangles eight at a time.

Carolina gingham backing

This Kona COTY quilt was backed with one of the Robert Kaufman ginghams. I really love a gingham quilt backing and it doesn’t get any more classic than a black and white one.

The binding is Kona Cotton in the color Pepper. Pepper is a really great black alternative. It’s not quite as deep as black. It’s somewhere between a black and charcoal.

Long arm quilting

I sent this Expanding Stars quilt off to Modern Textiles for quilting. We chose this Long Arm League pantograph called Echoed Curves.

Kona COTY Expanding Stars quilt materials used

Quilt pattern – Expanding Stars by Quilty Love
Fabrics – Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solids: Ivory, Nocturne, Lupine, Wasabi and Pepper
Pieced on my Juki 2010q
Long arm quilted by Modern Textiles

Here’s a look at the KOTY Expanding Star options that didn’t make the cut.