"Her Favorite Color Is Rainbow"

After it laid in limbo for nearly three months, I finally got to quilting my rendition of the McCall's Quilting May/June 2014 "Galaxy" quilt.

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."

Borders on!

Last week, I had four blocks done and a few in progress. Today, I added the final borders:

I feel like I have had a productive week! Even better, I am totally loving how it has turned out. Yay!

Backing is next on the agenda. I have the fabric-- I even have enough that I *should* be able to piece the full back with just the one print. There is so much piecing on the front, I really want to avoid a ton of seams on the back. Here's hopin'!

Starry sky

I've been hanging onto that desire to create and have made some good progress on my new project:

The four blocks on the bottom left are all sewn, and the three on the right are in progress. It is a twelve block quilt, so I feel as if I'm already more than halfway. Yay!

I'm really enjoying putting this one together so far. Rainbows are totally fun. :)

Starting fresh

My mom passed away this weekend. She had been struggling for a number of years, so in many ways, it was a blessing. But I can't help but feel sad and a bit bewildered. A world without my mom... it is a strange thing.

I find myself really feeling a need to make and create right now. So I have been taking some time in my quilt cave to figure out how to channel this energy. I found my project:

My plan is to use this pattern, from the May/June 2014 issue of McCall's Quilting but make it ROY G BIV style.

Last fall I purchased a beautifully curated color wheel-inspired set of fat quarters from Pile o' Fabric. So I used that as a base and have supplemented with some additional prints and solids. Just looking at the stack makes me happy. What's not to love about rainbows?

For the background, I'll be using a deep blue solid, Kona Nautical. I'm toying with the idea of mixing up the background a bit though as well. We'll see.