a graduated rainbow quilt top

Perhaps you remember these lovely fabrics? I’ve been purchasing pieces here and there, and I knew from the start that I wanted to use them all together in one big quilt. I love the designs, and Hitomi prints them in all the colors of the rainbow, so what else could I do but use them and show off their rainbow-y goodness?!


It took me a while to decide how to best showcase these designs. In fact, it wasn’t until just recently when I was poking through some old photo albums that I found my inspiration. Want to see it? (really?)

Once I turned the page and came across this photo of an old family vacation in Tortola, I immediately paused. (No, not because I was so in awe of that lovely hairdo. Oh yes, I was so stylish!) I was eying that striped beach towel and knew immediately that it would be a perfect design for these fabrics.

[As an aside, I realize this photo doesn’t really scream beach vacation. But really, the beach we were camping on was beautiful… just more picturesque during daylight hours. The turquoise waters really helped.]

I love the rainbow columns, though to be honest, I wasn’t really thinking when I came up with measurements for the blocks. For some reason, I kept the size of the white blocks constant, while decreasing the size of the printed areas as it graduated from red to purple. Which of course means that the layout didn’t end up exactly as I pictured. Even though it wasn’t exactly the look I was after, I decided not to rip it all apart.

Luckily I like the way this looks too! Now I’m just debating over whether to add white borders to each side. I’m thinking yes… you?

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kites in the clouds quilt

I’m really excited to have finished up this quilt! As I may have mentioned last time, this is the first quilt I’ve made that’s made up entirely of solids. And I wonder now why I waited so long!

This quilt got its start many, many months ago. At that time, I had just finished my Flying Farfalle quilt, and wanted to make a second similar quilt. Instead of using white for the main solid, I went with Kona Coal and paired it with lots of Kona scraps. To make the colors pop, I outlined them with a tiny bit of white.

I intended to lay it out the same way as the Flying Farfalle quilt, but then Morgan started playing with the layout while it was up on the design wall and turned it into this instead. I love the imperfect little colored diamonds (or kites!) it creates.

I kept the backing pretty simple, using lots more Kona Coal, along with just a couple tiny strips of colored solids. I knew I wanted to use a dark gray thread for quilting, and I don’t love the look of a dark thread on lighter colored fabrics, so I figured I’d keep the backing mostly gray to avoid that.

It took a while to decide how to quilt it – again, mainly because I wanted to avoid the look of the dark thread going through the white and lighter colored fabrics. Finally I came up with this big zig zag quilting pattern which goes through each block, but avoids the colored diamonds. I did a double line zig zag horizonally through the quilt, and I love how it looks.

And yes, Max now has yet another new quilt! I realize this is really thinking in advance (and I’m sure there will be many other quilts before this), but I think this might make a great quilt when he moves to a toddler bed. But for now, we’ll use it as another playmat!

Posted in [search] Liberated Quilts, Posts about Quilts, Quilts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

stripes + dots

A bit of new fabric found its way into the house recently –

It’s Children at Play by Sarah Jane, and I think it’s wonderful. I particularly love those stripes, which I may have purchased in every color. I also can’t resist a good polka dot. (purchased here and here)

I’ve already cut into some of the stripes for yet another pair of pants for Max. He keeps growing right out of each pair I make! These are a bit bigger all around, and I added a few inches in length, so hopefully they’ll last for a little while. (Would it be overkill to make a pair in each of the stripes? probably…)

And speaking of that little cutie, I can’t resist showing a couple of photos from this week.

He certainly loves that thumb! Unfortunately, he’s started waking a couple times in the middle of the night (just when I was starting to get really used to a full night’s sleep!) and he doesn’t seem to find his thumb at that time. I’m hoping it’s just a phase (4 month sleep regression?) and hopefully he’ll return to a better sleeping schedule soon. I can hope, right?

As far as this weekend, here’s my to do list –

Perhaps a bit ambitious… We shall see!

Posted in baby, Fabric | Tagged , , , , , | 24 Comments