Rainbow Scrap Challenge Update and a Free Quilt Pattern

This was not the plan, but I have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt finish with the first three months’ colours!

I’m actually quite pleased with it. January was dark blue, and I did a couple of medium and medium/dark blue 9-patch blocks. February was dark green, and I added in some muddy ones. March was red, which was when I realized my original thinking of a rainbow of 9-patches that finish at 7.5” wasn’t going to work the way I had envisioned; it would be a humongous quilt.

Enter a modification. You can read about the process in this post from April 8. Here is the top, which has sat since April 17, patiently waiting for a backing...

which I finished on Monday.

I thought I’d do a red backing, because that was the March colour. It feels so good to use up these random chunks of fabric. The leaves one is from the back of my cousin Val’s Jasper quilt, and the after dark super-cool Gothic fabric by Alexander Henry is what was left of a piece I’d bought for MacGyver’s Skulls on Fire quilt but didn’t use.

Yesterday was a cold and off and on rainy day, so after our Jane’s Walk in the morning, dog walk when we got home, lunch and stuff, I loaded it in the afternoon, and started quilting. I finished it after supper, and got the binding made ready to apply on Saturday.

I wanted something circular in the snowball blocks, and linear in the stars. A huge swirl in the snowball was fun and fast, using a variegated cotton Essential thread in grey to black. Could I do back-and-forth lines on a diagonal? Well, it’s a comfort quilt, so a great place to practise that, and so it was. The lines are wobbly from time to time, but overall it provides the effect I wanted.

I looked in my binding scrap bag, and was pleased to find three strips I’d cut for Val’s Jasper quilt but opted not to use, so this was a perfect quilt for them. Into the grey strings scrap box I went, hoping for a 2 ¼” wide pieces, and scored a near WOF grey batik one, adding another 12” strip of solid grey Kona. I had originally thought I might keep this quilt, but no, it’s going to be a donation. I do have a few(!) rainbow scrap challenge quilts I’ve kept over the years, and I’m sure I will keep another one or three down the road. Dayna just asked for the arrows one I did several years ago, so I’m glad to send it to a good home.

The back.

Managed to get this photo before Zora grabbed the clothespeg!

And a closeup of the binding, my initials in one corner and satin tag visible.

One more. The Korean viburnum is looking the best since we moved it here. Love the flowers it produces. The barberry has grown tenfold in size! I love its orange flowers that come out in a couple of weeks. It’s been so abnormally cold this past week and May’s long range forecast looks to be below normal, but with all the rain we’ve had everything is glowing green. However, from everyone’s point of view, we’d like to feel some sunshiney-heat please Mama Nature!

Quilt Stats:

Size: 42.5" square

Pattern: my own design based on one by saija_elina 

Fabric: scraps

Batting:  100% polyesterd by Soft Loft

Backing: leftovers 

Quilted: on Avril, 36 385 stitches

Threads: pieced on my Bernina with various; quilted with Essential 100% variegated cotton; rayon by Floriani in the bobbin.

Linking up

soscrappy

Songbird Designs

Quilty Girl

From Bolt to Beauty

The Pattern For This Quilt

If you happen to have, as I do, an embarrassment of 3" squares, here is what I did:

1. Make thirteen 9-patch blocks which will be 8" unfinished.

2. Cut twelve 8" grey squares. Snowball the corners using red 3" squares. (I’ve sewn all 48 cut off HSTs back together, perhaps to put on the back of the quilt or make a placemat. They squared to 2 ¼", and will finish at 1 ¾". 

Border

3a. Pair a red 3 ½" square with a grey 3 ½" square. Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the grey square; sew ¼" either side of the drawn line and then cut on the drawn line to yield two HSTs. Square them to 3".

3b. Sew a grey 3" square between two red/grey HSTs. Make 12 of these units. They should measure 3" x 8".

4. Sew three 3" grey squares together. Make eight of these units.

5. Lay out the blocks and border units as in my quilt, placing four 3" squares at the four corners.

6. Either assemble the quilt in rows, or, as I prefer to do with all my quilts, sew it in columns. This means that I pair the 3" grey corner square with the HST unit, then sew the HST unit in row 2 to the blue 9-patch, then in row 3 I sew the three grey squares unit to the snowball block, and so on. I chain piece the column, which keeps all the blocks in order. I then press each vertical seam, alternating direction, so that when I sew the paired blocks in row 1 to those in row 2, the centre seams nest.

I learned this method, called 'Book It' many many years ago when taking a colourwash class, and have shown it to several quilters over the years. It keeps your blocks in order, which was crucial for the colourwash effect. It is the first tutorial I wrote for my blog(!) and shows exactly how I do this. Look under Tips and Tutorials, or just click here.