a quiet rainbow quilt

The start of 2015 had me motivated to quilt up some of those old tops that have been hanging in my closet (now that we’ve moved, they’re actually in my closet rather than a spare closet, so I see them and feel guilty on a daily basis!). I pulled this one out first since I had already prepared a backing.

I looked back and discovered that I originally blogged about this top back in August of 2012, so really it was time to finish it up!

Interestingly enough, I usually spray baste my quilts (and even wrote a tutorial about it here), though lately I feel it’s maybe not as sticky as it used to be. I’ve found that my quilt looks all nice and flat when I spray it, but as soon as I pick it up and move it to the machine, I’m finding the fabric is bunching up and not as smooth and taut as I’d like. So I’ve been doing a combo of 505 and pins, which seems like a waste of time, but I suppose I’ve always been afraid of just basting a quilt with pins. I went for it this time, and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was it easier than I imagined, but I was so happy with how the quilting turned out and how flat and smooth it is (without having to stop and rebaste!)

I picked these fabrics as my version of a low volume rainbow. It’s interesting to look at now — at the time these were the lowest volume fabrics I could find in my stash. I’m not sure if I just didn’t have more in my stash, or if it was just that it was before there were so many low volume prints available. I do love the less bold versions of these colors and how they look with all the white and off white solids. I also got to add in lots of favorite linen-y prints by Ink & Spindle and Skinny LaMinx, making it extra special.

It’s quilted with horizontal straight lines about an inch apart and has this gray Flea Market Fancy print as a backing along with a brown polka dot for binding.

Big thanks to my friend, Melinda, who braved the zero degree temps and snow banks to hold this one up for me while our kids waited (somewhat) patiently in warm cars. All along I’ve been waiting for a good snowstorm for some quilt photos, but wasn’t planning on these negative temps! You probably wouldn’t notice, but the quilt is sideways here – when it’s this cold out there’s no time to adjust such things!