I finished it just in the nick of time, too-- literally the day before the intended recipient's 8th birthday party. I feel lucky I managed to get some pictures of it!
I really enjoyed choosing the fabrics and pairing them together for each individual star. I started with a beautiful rainbow fat quarter grouping from Pile O'Fabric and then supplemented with some additional solids and prints. It is subtle, but I actually used two different fabrics for the background. One was a Kona solid, Nautical, a deep navy blue. The other was an old Moda print that I pulled out from my stash-- deep, mottled blues with white dots that I thought looked very starry. I did a diagonal band of the print from the top left corner down to the bottom right, and then used the solid in the other corners. I feel like it gives it a sense of a ribbon of stars running through it-- like the Milky Way. It's almost too subtle, really. But I know its there!
To try and help emphasize the different backgrounds, I quilted them differently (which you can kind of see in the photo above, showing the quilting from the back side). The Milky Way band received some wavy lines (mimicking the mottled waviness of the print) and the solid got lots of swirls. Then I used some Dot-to-Dot quilting for the stars themselves (inspired by the Angela Walters Craftsy class-- which, by-the-way, is excellent and has many great ideas for quilting).
All of the quilting was completed using Aurifil 50/2 thread in 2745 (Midnight). I used nearly a whole 1,422 yard spool.
When I was doing the initial planning for this quilt, I was thinking to use this Kaufman Quilter's Linen in Midnight for the background of the stars, but when I finally put my palette together, it felt a bit bright. But, since I had plenty of it, it made for a perfect back!
And the label.
The name I gave the quilt is pretty reflective of the recipient. Many a time have I heard her say her favorite color is, "rainbow."
This GORGEOUS!!
ReplyDeleteI meant this IS gorgeous!! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Kathy!!! It feels so good when a project turns out even better than one imagines. :)
DeleteOooh! I love it!!! I really like how you placed the colors. I wish I could see it in person so I could see the background prints. Really nice. It is a great size, too. She'll be able to use this forever.
ReplyDeleteOooh! I love it!!! I really like how you placed the colors. I wish I could see it in person so I could see the background prints. Really nice. It is a great size, too. She'll be able to use this forever.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I wish you could see it too... like I said-- maybe a bit TOO subtle. But it's also kind of a secret that you can only see in person... and that's kind of cool too! She will definitely be able to use it for awhile (assuming her mama doesn't steal it... she threatened to keep it for herself!). :P
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