My 4 year old asked me to make her a quilt...again! I give her all my scraps that are smaller than 2.5 inches and ones that are too short for a strings quilt. So I thought she had enough little pieces to make a bottled rainbow quilt. What looks like a large pile of scraps can not be enough!
We sorted them all by color. Then I went through them and put them into shades and removed the duplicates. There wasn't much left! So I made my blocks 10 x 10 with the inside being only 6 inches. Surely there would be enough for that.
Here are a couple of the blocks. (These pictures are after washing.) I didn't have enough of a couple of the colors and had to get into my scrap stash. I even didn't have enough blue in my scraps to make a block so I cut some from my regular stash. And I thought I had a lot of scraps! Apparently, I have a lot of the same stuff. Need to work on that.
To fix this problem, I used a single fabric 2 times in each block spreading it out. You can see I duplicated 3 of the red fabrics.
I used clear monopoly thread to quilt this so I didn't get white thread on a dark color like you see in this picture below: (this is an older quilt I have hanging on my wall) You can read this post for some tips using this type of thread.
Here you can see below that it isn't that big a deal to quilt on both sides of the ditch when you use clear thread. You should know that I really dislike stitching in the ditch - mainly because I can't quilt straight even with a ruler! It really isn't noticeable when looking at the quilt (unless you zoom in with your camera!).
I stitched around both sides of the color on the blocks, leaving the centers untouched. Oh that's right I didn't do quilt-as-you-go like everyone else. I used a glue stick to glue the small pieces where they should go, then zig zagged them down, one block at a time. Like applique without using interfacing.
And just so you know I am never ever perfect...I always forget to trim threads when I am using a white sashing. By the time I saw this I did not want to unload and trim! My 4 year old won't see it until she's much older and by then, I'll just make her another quilt!
I was going to quilt some spirals in the color part of each block, but after all the ditch work and the straight lines in the sashing I didn't feel like it any more. Less is more - right? The back has a fun rainbow of solids because I couldn't get one on the front.
There is one happy 4 year old running around my house these days!
I love your daughter's quilt. Rainbow quilts are my favorite lately. I find snipping threads really tedious. And I found some on my Farmer's Wife after more than an hour of snipping. You are the first person I've told. ;) I am also lacking in the variety of my scraps. I feel like I am building my scrap collection.
ReplyDeleteAs always, love your latest project. I wish I had the same fabric stash as yours, I'd just make the same things you do - love them all!
ReplyDeleteFor dealing with those dark threads, I read about the Clover Soft Touch Thread Pic on a blog, bought one and found it works really well. It's a teeny tiny needle sized crochet hook that you can use to pull threads to the surface and then snip them off. Didn't leave a hole in the fabrics I used it on, also useful for tying knots on short tails and burying them. I bought mine at Joann's. If you get one, be careful how you store it, I keep mine in my binding supplies pouch, but the lid keeps coming off - and the tiny hook might get bent. Hope this is helpful!
I can only imagine your daughters giggles and smiles over her new quilt . I like to think that each quilt I give gets the same reaction.
ReplyDeletePlease tell your daughter that I think her quilt is beautiful.