Sewing Spectacular Part 1: Covid Quilt Challenge #15 Part 2

It's been a much more hectic week than I was anticipating, so this part 2 post is coming a little later than I intended.

As a quick reminder, the challenge was "Fancy Stitches" and the assigned colour scheme was "Rainbow".

Interestingly enough, although we worked together most of the weekend, we did our planning separately. And even though we did our planning separately, we managed to come up with very similar ideas. As you've already seen, we each did a version of what I will call "Rainbow Row": straight stripes of rainbow colours. Covid Quilt Challenge #15 Part 1 features those projects.

The other thing we both thought of doing was more of an explosion of colour.

My friend chose to carefully plan hers. She drew out a design, coloured it in, made it into a paper-pieced pattern, carefully selected her fabric and got to work.

First she pieced some "bigger" sections (bigger is a relative term when you're working in about 7" square).

Then she glued some appliqué pieces on top to add more definition.

She stitched, vaguely along most of the seams - colour matching the thread.

A black binding finished this one off.

A view from the back.

For mine, I decided to go with more of an improv/crazy quilt technique. I started with a back and some batting and added the colours one at a time. I picked a colour, and added stitches to it. Then I put my next piece on top, stitched it down, folded it open and stitched again.

This technique involved lots of thread changes :). I just went with 2 colours on the back that I switched with every new fabric, and many different colours on top. I also used some colourful ribbon to add a bit more colour. For each new colour of fabric, I started with the thread colour from the fabric before. Other than that, I just picked what I thought would look good.

The problem with improv and working within constraints, is that it doesn't always do what you want and you have to adjust. Once I had all my colours down, it wasn't going to square up entirely nicely. I had though about adding a bit more to it so I didn't loose too much of the work I did by cutting it off, but I noticed that I had gone over on the back too. So instead I decided it didn't need to be square, and started cutting it down. Overall, I'm not thrilled with how it finished - at that point I was a little impatient and trying to get it done and dinner made and ready for another challenge to start. I loved it before I finished it up, now I feel like I just like it. I really like the technique and the colours. It's definitely something I would do again.

I chose to go with a busy back because I knew the stitches were going to be all over the place. I also bound it with some grosgrain ribbon.

Speaking of dinner. This is what happens when 2 people are busy sewing all afternoon and don't want to have to clean up for dinner - we make do with what we have.

When sewing is life