Tag Archives: sew the rainbow

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This week the new project on the design wall is my Improv Tumbler that I'm making for my Island Batik Ambassador "Whimsical and Wonky" challenge this month. All of my fabrics are from the Paisley Dot Brights 10" stack (provided to me by Island Batik). I'm going for a color wash effect. I was able to get all of my whole tumblers onto the wall. I have a pile of half tumblers that I will use to fill in the ends of each row and perhaps piece together to fill in if needed. These improv tumblers were cut freehand with a rotary cutter, without the use of a ruler or template.

I look forward to starting to get this one sewn together. It's shown on a 48" wide design wall, so I expect it will shrink up up around 36" wide.

Edited to add: A little more on this project can be found in this earlier post. And it's based on my Improv Tumbler Mini (which I miss).

What's on your design wall this week?

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I participated in quilt bees for the first time in 2015. For Stash Bee last July I chose the Simply Woven pattern from the Moda Bake Shop website, written by Jessica Kelly. I asked that blocks be made in a rainbow of color, using red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple each once, in any placement within the block.

I ended up with 13 blocks (12 shown above), and knew I'd need to make a bunch more (23!) to get to a 60" x 60" finish, my preferred minimum size for a lap quilt. So this project got set aside.

Fast forward to last month. When the initial call from the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild came to help make quilts for the victims and families of victims of the shooting at Pulse (all details about the quilts here), I thought of the Woven Rainbow project. As details about the quilt plans unfolded, they asked for heart blocks. My local guild is combining efforts to finish a couple quilts to send, so I opted to make some blocks for our group to use.

And my Woven Rainbow blocks stayed in their container.

Just a day or two after that came the devastating news of the death of 2-year-old Lane Graves in the alligator attack at Walt Disney World. I thought a lot about the family and when I read that Lane had a 4-year-old sister, my heart broke for her especially. I have a 4-year-old daughter and I can't imagine her world being rocked by the loss of her sibling. I knew immediately that I wanted to make a quilt for Ella.

As you know, quilts take time, so I thought about what I had in progress that I could finish up especially for her. My Woven Rainbow project seemed like just the choice. I could use 12 blocks to make a 36" x 48" quilt, a great size for a 4-year old. And the rainbow palette seemed just right as well.

I chose a blue floral backing fabric and did some simple straight line quilting to echo the right and bottom edges of the colored strips. I bound the quilt using leftover binding from other projects. I love how much color there is. It's such a happy quilt!

The label reads:

Woven Rainbow
for Ella
made by Sarah Goer
with blocks made by
2015 Stash Bee Hive 1 members
June 2016
San Jose, California
wash cold. tumble dry low.

The quilt is on it's way to Nebraska. I hope Ella likes her Woven Rainbow and it helps her family wrap her in love during this difficult time.

Thank you for visiting. I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday, Finish it Up Friday, TGIFF and the Q2 FAL Finishes Linkup. See all my Q2 goals here.