Night Rainbow Fabric Blog Hop!
It's the Night Rainbow Blog Hop! I am so excited about this collection. I have always thought that dark colors are underrated. The unsung heroes of the color palette. They are experts at showing off the lights and brights.
I have been having so much fun making projects with Night Rainbow already that you can see in my Instagram feed HERE. When Monika of Penny Spool Quilts came out with the ElemenoQuilt pattern I knew I wanted to work with it for the blog hop. Here is what Monika says:
"ElemenoQuilt is a modern quilter's alphabet. This pattern is perfect for any project that needs words, whether you are putting a name on a pillow for your loved ones, making a political statement, a birthday banner, or anything in between. This pattern is meant as a quilter's tool kit that can be used in any project. Each letter and symbol is a self-contained 10" block pattern with cutting and piecing instructions. So whether you need a single letter, or many words, simply pick and choose the blocks you need."
So I started thinking. Might it be fun if you had a pillow to wish you good night when you went to bed? A Night Rainbow rainbow! Could I make those letters from ElemenoQuilt small enough for a pillow? (It turns out that this pattern is totally scaleable.) Time to make a Good Night Pillow Sham! Besides using the pattern for the letters, did I wing the rest of the project? Yes. Yes, I did. Sometimes you have to do that. You don't know how things are going to turn out, but that's the fun of it. Did I also do a lot of vigorous pressing? Yes. Yes, I did.
First, I took the ElemenoQuilt pattern and, with very simple math, made each letter a quarter of the original size. Just subtract the 1/2" seam allowance from each measurement, divide the measurement by 4, and then add the seam allowance back in. Voila! 2 1/2" blocks.
For the letters I used Night Rainbow as the background and a contrast white for the main fabric. Because the letters were all the same fabric, I added 1/4" strips of the background fabric in between the blocks to make it more readable.
Next, I added extra background fabric around the blocks.
Then I put the words section on top of a bigger piece of fabric. I used a rotary cutter to cut a curve through both layers. Freehand!
Then I pinned them, right sides together and sewed the curve.
Because I didn't figure in any seam allowance beforehand, once it is pinned, the outside fabric extends beyond the inside fabric. Trim it off!
Those steps were just repeated until there were 9 colors in the rainbow.
Instead of making a separate front and back, I decided to just make one longer piece to wrap around, so for the last row in the rainbow I made sure there was a bunch of extra fabric to fit around the back of the pillow and overlap. (The final piece measured
Some batting, a backing, and big stitch quilting was next.
AND wouldn't it be cool if there were glow in the dark stars?! Enter glow in the dark embroidery floss.
Then I trimmed the piece down to 20 1/2" x 56" and bound the short ends of the rectangle with Boundless binding stripe.
To finish the pillow sham, I wrapped the short ends around the back, overlapped them, and then bound the top and bottom edges with more Boundless.
Oh, and the glow in the dark stars? They work but are just impossible to photograph.
I am so grateful to Jennifer Strauser for once again organizing a blog hop for me. Be sure to check out everyone's projects. There is an amazing variety of fabulousness!
7/20 Jen Strauser dizzyquilter.com
7/21 Tara Miller quiltdistrict.com
7/22 Sherri Noel rebeccamaedesigns.com
7/23 Lissa LaGreca lovinglylissa.com
7/24 Siobhan Fitzpatrick cdm365studios.com
7/25 Heather Valentine thesewingloft.com
7/26 Autumn Shatto Geometryandjoy
7/27 Sandra Starley utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com
7/28 Jody Groenendyk gingerberryquilts.ca
7/29 Swan Sheridan swanamity.com/blog
7/30 Brianna Roberts quirkyb.com
7/31 Deborah Fisher fishmuseumandcircus.com/blogs/tutorials