Muted rainbow stripe quilt tutorial
Hello quilty friends. Today I'm sharing a rainbow quilt that I made for a loved one. In the end I decided to gift another quilt to that person for several reasons, so this is just a "for fun" quilt at our house now! I'm not complaining :) The colors make me so happy. At 68" x 86", it's a very good size for a twin sized bed, so maybe that will be its purpose one day, who knows.
The pattern is as simple as they come, I really wanted the colors and quilting to shine! Plus this is the first quilt top I sewed as I was coming out of a very sick first trimester and the world felt overwhelming. I needed something really easy!
I honestly think it took me longer to decide on colors than it did to make the quilt top. I kept reordering 1/4 yard cuts from Fabric Bubb and after about 4 tries I felt very happy with this muted rainbow of Kona solids:
Pale Flesh (now Shell I think?)
Dusty Peach
Rose
Plum
Deep Rose
Gold
Curry
Wasabi
Pickle
Lime
Celadon
Seafoam
Fog
Delft
Fabric Requirements:
(14) quarter yard cuts of colors. They will need to be cut very straight, so if you are buying from a store that isn't known for it's accurate and generous cutting, maybe get 1/3 yds. instead. Fabric Bubb won't do you wrong!
2.5 yds white fabric
5/8 yd binding fabric
5 yds backing
Instructions:
Cut the colored quarter yards into (2) 4.5" x WOF strips each. Trim off and square up the selvege ends, sew end to end for length, press the seam, and cut each strip to 4.5" x 68". I cut them in stacks of 4 or so. You will have some nice sized scraps for another project. I made a pillow and still had some left.
Cut the white fabric into (24) 2.5" strips. Sew all of them end to end and press seams. It will be very long! Try to let it fall back and forth into a somewhat neatly folded pile as you make it, that way you won't have a tangled mess and it will come up easily as you sew it.
With your colored strips, and your loooong white strip, you're ready to go! Here's how I did it.
Sew a white strip along every colored strip, chain piecing as you go. In other words, I didn't cut any white until the end, just kept adding a new color strip as I went. Then trim them all up and press towards the colors. Using this method, you must be very careful not to tug on the white or let it pull down as you sew, or your white stripes will be wavy and bunched.
If that way stresses you out, you can also just cut (15) 2.5" x 68" white strips and sew them in between every color.
Sew the white strips and colors strips together alternately in your desired rainbow order (mine is listed in order above). Press toward the colors and your top is ready! Baste, quilt, and bind as desired. I had mine quilted with rainbow hearts by CrinkleLove. I had a mostly green backing picked out for this one, but when I saw the text print Sarah had available, I knew that was the right choice! I love it on the back of the colors.
For binding I used the same white as the stripes. I've never used white binding before, but I really love it! Now to see how dirty it gets, ha.
I planned the quilt dimensions so that they'd fit a twin bed, but we' don't have that size of bed at our house right now. I did discover that when using it on a toddler bed, you can get "boy" quilt or "girl" quilt colors by folding down alternate sides :)
I hope you find this tutorial easy to understand. I didn't plan on making one originally, hence no progress pictures, but then I got a lot of questions about it. It's a great place for beginners to start, or a fast project for experienced quilters.
As always, thank you for stopping by! This is my 100th post on this blog since I started in March 2016. I can hardly believe that, it doesn't seem like nearly that many. Thank you to those of you who follow along in this space. I'm happy to share it with you!
