Rainbow Swirl Finish

Rainbow Swirl is another instance of me seeing a quilt on Instagram, and going to EQ7 to recreate it for myself. The designer is Sedef of DownGrapeVineLane who gave me permission to make and share it, with credit to her.

I'm pretty sure she made hers with smaller squares than I did. I cut 4" squares to sew half-square triangles for 3" X 3" finished squares. With the 3"-wide white border, this quilt finishes at 36" X 36".

My version is made with a scrappy assortment of favorite fabrics. Sedef made hers from a collection. I've never been a "collection" sort of quilter. In fact, I don't think I've ever made a quilt using just one collection. In my opinion, quilts made from one fabric collection are over-coordinated. There's no out-of-place fabric that gives the quilt an eye-catching spark.

Quilts made with a variety of fabrics from a variety of designers, make for an interesting and even historical document about fabric trends. Someday some knowledgeable quilter will look at this quilt and remark, "Oh, that's a quilt from the teens. Don't you remember when collections by Emma Jean Jansen, Amanda Jean Murphy, Lizzy House, Joel Dewberry, Alison Glass, Tula Pink, Pat Bravo, Anna Marie Horner, Lora Holt, Brigitte Heiland, Carrie Bloomston, Amanda Herring, and.... were popular?" Yep, all those designers' fabrics are in this little quilt!

I quilted "Rainbow Swirl" on my Pfaff Grand Quilter, the one with the new throat plate cover. I'm happy to say that I no longer have a thread breaking issue. It was definitely burrs in the throat plate  hole that were causing all the problems.

For the quilting, I first stitched curves, across from each other, using a Fine Line ruler. Then, I eyeballed an echoing curve outside those. In the space between the curves I added a wavy design. As always, once I finally decided what I wanted to quilt, the doing of it went quickly.

Since I made too many half-square triangles - intentionally, so I would have enough to play with color arrangement on the front - I worked the extra HSTs into the back. Because I do this with all my quilts - use leftover blocks in the back - I seldom have orphan blocks to deal with.

The quilting shows up nicely on the back. Batting is Quilter's Dream Request Poly. I am, I confess, a Quilter's Dream batting snob. I think it's the best quality brand.

Binding is bias cut from a striped fabric so I could get the candy cane effect I like so well. That prettily mitered corner is machine-sewn. (If you aren't familiar with this binding method, see my tutorial here.) Quilting thread is YLI silver-colored polished polyester - some of the $300 worth of YLI thread I won when one of my small quilts took second place at the Machine Quilter's Expo in 2012.

I am notorious for seeing a quilt I want to make and then dumping everything to make it right now. But gosh, I like this one.

You'll want to make a note to visit my blog on Friday, November 20. Not only will I have a very special guest blogger - someone who's very dear to my heart - but I'll have a giveaway. And don't we all like those?! Linda