RAINBOW STARS AND CHEVRONS

FROM CONCEPT...

TO COMPLETION!

Twelve years ago, back in 2002, I went to a quilt show and bought some fabric.  Now, I've bought a lot of fabric, but I usually know what I'm going to make with it and when I'm going to make it.  This was the first time I just fell in love with some fabric and bought it on a whim.  I guess I've learned my lesson, because I've never done it again!  Anyway, here is what I bought way back around the turn of the century:

This picture shows four identical bundles of twelve Fossil Fern fabrics in rainbow colors, arranged so that you can see all the colors.  I only bought one bundle.

I found this Laurel Burch fabric, which is called, "Cats in Jungle".  I thought it would work well with the rainbow fabrics, and I was not sure how much to buy, so I bought four yards.

The other fabric I used was Kona White.  No picture of that fabric, because, well, it's plain white fabric.  I could have taken a photo of a piece of paper, and you would not know the difference!

I always planned to make a kid's quilt out of this collection, and, last week, I pulled the fabric out and started scouting Pinterest to get ideas.  I saw the quilt below, designed by Gerri Robinson, and liked the idea of having rows of different blocks that looked good together, rather than just one block throughout.

 I think this quilt is rectangular, but I wanted a square quilt.  I made a couple of other changes as well, like using different colors for the centers and points of the stars, and using more colors for the stars and chevrons.  Where Gerri chose not to have a border on her quilt, I used the Cats in Jungle fabric to make a 3.75" border.  I used the same fabric for the binding and the backing, Warm and White 100% cotton batting, and white King Tut 100% Egyptian cotton quilting thread.

Most of the time, I seem to gravitate to scrappy quilts, ones where I tend to make one block at a time.  This time, I was able to do a lot of chain piecing, because many of the blocks were identical.  That was fun for a change!  Of course, I worked way too long for two days in a row, and ended up with back spasms that were very painful, lasted all through the night, and kept me awake and very unhappy!  At the end of the second day, when the spasms were at their worst, I actually took a Vicadin.  I hate doing that, so you know I must really have been hurting.

With the piecing done, I started to choose a quilting design from the ones I already own, but the idea I had was for something swirly or loopy, and nothing I had quite fit the bill.  I went to Urban Elementz and popped for a new design called "Outside In".  It turned out perfect!  It was so fun to quilt, especially watching the pattern develop over all the brilliant colors.  Here are a few photos of the quilt on the frame of my Ansley 26 longarm quilting machine:

Now that the binding is done, the quilt is ready to be posted to my Etsy shop.  You can find the listing by clicking here.  I had so much fun designing and creating this quilt.  I would love to keep it for myself, but the quilts around here are starting to pile up, as you can imagine.  The joy was in the journey for me, but this fantastic kid quilt's journey will not be over until it finds a loving home!  Thanks for visiting today, and I'll leave you with a few photos of the quilt.