Quilters Lead Pieceful Lives.

Sunday, October 31, 2021

rainboW Weave

In our den we have a U-shaped sofa. The sides are chaise length, and induce instant torpor when anyone stretches out on them.

Last year, during the height of the COVID quarantine, we decided to make a lap quilt to make daytime napping even comfier. The result was Circular Spectrum #72

Of course, once we had one made, it was only a matter of time until there had to be a second one (for the other, cold, lonely chaise). 

We wanted a pattern that would allow us to use the many, if not all, of the colored fabrics, and the same two background colors. It had to be a complimentary quilt (same size and feel), but unique as well.

Somehow, we did a web search and found the answer within 30 seconds! That never happens!!  We chose a weave (or lattice) pattern.

Knowing that Circular had a rainbow of colors that went from upper left light to lower right dark (through the spectrum), we decided to arrange these colors the same way.

Pawing through the stash we managed to find all of the fabrics / colors that we had used before! But in this pattern, the strips were smaller (less impactful) than the circles were, so we started to swap some out and swap in some others. We also decided to keep the same color family from top to bottom in each column, as opposed to the diagonal nature of Circular. And with 9 columns, we had to determine how best to divide ROY G. BIV.

Laying out all the possibilities (and a few more we bought from Quilter's Heaven) resulted in an arrangement of Pinkish-Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Green-Blue-Blue-Purple (Indigo...Violet).

For the background colors, we also had some scraps, but knew we would need more. Luckily, QH had just enough on hand!

Cutting and piecing were very easy (nothing like the process in Circular). Lots of pieces to sew, but chain stitching helped that go faster. I knew that I would do the same ditch quilting as on the other one (though this time just the vertical seams), so the size (42 x 54) was manageable enough to do all in one.

The result:


And, just like with Circular, I once again went with the "facing binding" technique. So no binding is visible on the front (and it blends in on the back).

We have already tested this new addition to our family and can confirm that it is just as cuddly as its sibling!

PS: no....those are not typos in the name. It's that way for a reason. We're sure you can figure it out!