Hawaii Quilt - Complete!

It's Done!  I can't even believe it, five and a half years after I envisioned it I have completed it!   I am thrilled.





A friend of mine owns not one, but two long arm machines, she has graciously allowed me to use one of them whenever.  I went over and began to do the tight meander that I had seen so many times.  The issue... childcare.  I am the childcare, and Isabella wasn't all that cooperative while I was trying to quilt, and a babysitter in the middle of the day seemed impossible.  I was still breastfeeding... So with the quilt about 7/8 done on the longarm I had to abandon it, sad sad day.  My friend offered to finish it for me, and a few weeks ago she brought it over ALL DONE!!  It is so flat and smooth, my straight line quilting has improved, but it's not as nice as this yet, I still get puckers.





I am so excited and I MACHINE bound this!! I'm learning!  It's not so horrible!  This is my fifth attempt at machine binding and I may have finally gotten the hang of it.  Hooray! It feels so good to have this completed.



Read Here and here and here if you want to catch the back story on this quilt.

Rainbow Quilt with Tutorial

For my birthday I received the Kona "Dark" Fat Quarter box, it was very exciting, and really until now I have hardly used it!  Then I saw the Crossroads quilts over at Red Pepper Quilts.  They were so cool!  Such a simple design!  So many colors!  I decided I could make one!  I also think I can explain it!  So everyone can make it!



On New Years eve I picked out 28 colors.  I wasn't looking for that many, I knew I wanted at least 24, and I settled on 28.  (They are listed below).  An even number will ensure that the middle color is different on either side, and odd will result in a solid strip across (if that's what you're looking for)

First cut two:  2"x 22" strips from each of the 28 fabrics, and line them up on your idea board.
Next iron them all with spray starch to help them stay straight.

From the top left: Navy, Windsor, Copen, Turquoise, Pacific, Surf, Deep Blue, Teal Blue, Emerald, Jade Green, Clover, Grass Green, Curry, Canary, Papaya, Orange, Coral, Red, Ruby Crimson, Brick, Chocolate, Pepper, Purple, Hibiscus, Cerise, Pomegranate, Bright Pink

Carefully sew them all together, and iron the seams open.
Repeat for the second side.

At this point I had alot of rough edges and selvedges that needed to be cut off, so I trimmed everything up.  RPQ made her sides different widths for interest, you could make four chunks and alternate them... I like the idea of this being divided down the middle.

I then pinned all the matching seams together and sewed down the middle.  I used a 3/8" seam allowance, not exactly sure why but it just seemed like a good idea. Pressed, and voila!  Quilt top!



The quilting is 3/8" away from all the seams on either side, including the one down the middle.   I debated making the grid like RPQ did, but I was running out of thread, and decided this was plenty of quilting. I used silvery thread that exactly matched the backing fabric (Kona Ash).

The finished size is about 40"x45"

I think this looks fantastic, and considering I started at 10pm on New Year's eve and finished on 2 Jan, I couldn't be happier! The back is Kona Ash, and it's bound in Kona Black.   I'm pretty sure there will be a baby Colorist quilt with these same colors arriving soon!