A GIANT Giant Rainbow Quilt! (and what went wrong)

As I started working on the Giant Rainbow Quilt I thought I wanted to make it in alllll the sizes. In part because I wanted a king-sized version for my own bed! Doesn’t everyone? After polling testers to ask what size they’d like to try, all of them chose twin or throw. Can you believe none of them seized the opportunity to make a Full, Queen or KING sized rainbow quilt? I was stunned that no one was clamoring to wrestle 10+ yards of fabric under a presser foot. AND be the grownup who sleeps under a rainbow quilt. STUNNED.

Putting my disappointment aside, I decided to release it in twin and throw sizes but still make the king size for myself. A GIANT Giant Rainbow quilt. (And, ahem, I decided I wasn’t going to wrestle it alllll by myself. I sent it out for quilting!)

I’ve narrowed 200 photos of my new baby down to about 199 and collected thoughts to share in no particular order.

So one side is BIG GIANT RAINBOW, and the other side is all white. I love all-white linens and kinda sorta pretending I’m on a permanent spa vacation. Also, after I’ve looked at print or colored sheets for a while I get bored with them. But not white. So I thought reversing to white was the right answer for me with this one. Color sometimes, white sometimes, let’s be spontaneous.

Finished size ended up being about 105 x 93. As big as that is, now that it’s on my bed I’d like it to be even bigger. I think I’d like more “drop” on the sides. Reminds me of something along the lines of measure twice, cut once? Note to self – measure next time.

Over the weekend I finished binding it in time for Alida to help photograph. While think it’s completely bizarre to see photos of a blogger’s bedroom, here we are… in my bedroom. Except that the piles of clothes I might never ever finish sorting were moved out of the camera’s way. 

My 5yo is always happy to jump into shots.

The quilting follows the rainbow arcs with heavily textured lines, and then a wavy bubbly sort of texture above. Cloudy but not clouds exactly.

After we captured it in its new home Alida and I took it over to a nearby covered bridge for photos. 

Following the bridge shoot I threw it into the washing machine with two color catchers for good measure and held my breath. Any time I throw anything handmade I have this impending feeling of doom – like maybe I bought water-soluble fabric or thread and didn’t notice?

The fabric I used for the top section of the front and for the backing had a tighter weave than the quilting cottons in the pieced section, and before washing the stitching felt a little rough and raised – my first thought was that it was a thread tension issue. The longarmer (Crossn Threads) assured me that it’s the weave of the fabric I chose. After a momentary freak-out on my part, that issue pretty much disappeared after washing. Now everything is nestled in nicely. When it came out of the wash and dry process I loved it even MORE all crinkly.

So then it was time to throw the baby under it. 

Which lasted about 5 seconds before she started stomping all over it.

All of the prints in this quilt are by Anna Maria Horner – from top to bottom they’re Honor Roll Misguided Gingham in Strawberry, Garden Party Mingling in Gold, Good Folks Filigree in Sun, Loulouthi Hugs and Kisses in Apple, Dowry Tangled in Aqua. Huh! I wasn’t even trying to use 5 different collections. Not hard to do – I love everything she does.

Okay, here is where the photos just get out of control. I CANNOT CHOOSE ANY OF THESE TO REMOVE.

She’s my favorite baby (shhhh, the others don’t need to know!) on my favorite quilt (more shhhh-ing, the others really don’t need to know)

She loves to jump all over this bed and it’s adorable and completely terrifying. And amazing that any of these photos are clear because I was ready to leap across the bed to grab her at any second.

The major thing I’d do differently here – umm, this is totally embarrassing. But I used a slightly different white fabric to surround the rainbow portion of the quilt top. It doesn’t exactly match the upper portion. In my sewing room and in the light of the bedroom it’s not noticeable. (Bedroom lighting is kind to all sorts of quirks!) But when I hung it up to photograph it on the bridge? Totally noticeable.

I should have known better, but once I’d started I just raaaan with it. Ooops. LIVE AND LEARN. I lived. I learned. And while it’s not perfect, I loved the process and the final result. Fear! Mystery! Excitement! Shocking results! Who says quilting isn’t exciting? (And I still have two more versions to share!)

So, seriously, I realize I might be a grade schooler trapped in an adult body. Am I the only person you can think of who’d get excited about a GIANT Giant Rainbow Quilt?