Rainbow Wave Quilt from Busy Hands Quilts

I love color, bright colors, and thus I do love rainbow! Our feature today of Mrs. Hearts from Busy Hands Quilts is so happy and bright!! A darling quilt for her daughters joyful room! :)  I think I even have enough solids to make my own...hmmm.  Make sure to check out Busy Hands Quilts...she truly is busy!! Almost every post is a finish! My daughter's newly decorated room.  Don't you love the walls?!?  The other two walls are blue, which I may show you on another day.  That half of the room is ... not ... clean!!!  I had originally planned to make a Rainbow Plus Quilt on the top bunk {remember the 60 solids I purchased?}, but when Millie and I found this set at Kohl's for uber cheap, we couldn't pass it up.  It matches perfectly! The bottom quilt is a full-size Wave quilt with 18 different solids, made by yours truly.
It is LOVE ... or what!?!
It turned out truly AMAZING! The backing is a Riley Blake chevron in apple green and white, and oh, my, this fabric was a charm to work with!  WAY nicer than lesser quality flannels from other sources.  I washed and dried it once before assembling the quilt since flannel shrinks more than regular cotton fabrics and will shrink again when washed a second time.  The quilt top and binding were not preshrunk.
Here is a close-up of the candy binding.  YUM!  I quilted across the quilt twice in the colored areas, varying the height of the "swoops" as the wave progressed; and the white has tiny up/down swoops in it which you can't see.
Can you see where the two chevron fabric pieces were joined?  It's pretty hard to find it!  This high-quality flannel from Riley Blake was printed so perfectly on excellent fabric that the points met amazingly well.  I pinned the two pieces together at every zig zag and had no problems whatsoever.
Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  New Wave by Oh, Fransson!, free
• Size:  75" x 85", full bed size
• Quilt Top Fabric:  18 Kona solids with white
• Batting:  100% cotton, thin
• Backing:  Riley Blake Chevron in flannel
• Binding:  Sweet Treats, double fold with 45-degree mitered corners, attached by machine
• Quilting:  Varying sized "swoops" within the colored waves and small swoops in the white
• Value:  Truly uplifting!

I am taking custom orders for Rainbow Wave Quilts in any size in my Etsy shop! Busy Hands Quilts

From the Blue Chair color wheel quilt...

Okay, this is just awesome! Kati from "from the blue chair" made this amazing color wheel quilt. I am just in awe! I can't imagine how much time that would take me. It hurts my  head to think about.  Kati has an awesome blog, just check out her 2011 finishes, or 2010 finishes, Seriously! I want to steal them! One productive girl, and she has baby twins keeping her busy too, not to mention a preschooler! Make sure to go visit her blog...


My first step in the design process for my Color Wheel Quilt was to cut a lot of little squares.  I used my AccuQuilt Go Baby 2" square die for this.  I ordered this die specifically with this project in mind.  I admit I'm not super happy with the results.  I cut a total of about 250 pieces of fabric or probably 75 cuts (stacking 3-4 pieces at a time).  After cutting just the first charm pack, I started to notice my cutting mat was warping a bit.  By the 4th charm pack my cutting mat was quite warped, and I realized I was having significant distortion in my cuts.  Rather than having perfect 2" squares, they were short--some almost 1/8" short.  Some of the edges were also a bit wavy.  After realizing this I started placing a piece of white copy paper on top of each stack of fabric to be cut.  This helped a lot, but they are still not perfect 2" squares.  I probably won't be using this die much in the future.  I consulted AccuQuilt on this and was told the cutting mat should last 100's of cuts and the problem is likely a result of not cutting with the lengthwise grain.  I did more more experimenting and still had the exact same problems even when cutting with the grain as directed.  For some reason this die seemed to wear out my cutting mat far too quickly.  I had to alter my seam allowances to make everything fit due to the shorter squares.  Some of my seams don't meet due this this.  Frustrated is a nice way to say how I felt.  I had a few choice words in mind when I realized how off my squares were.  Luckily it all worked out in the end.

So, on to better things.  The following pictures show my design process.

I sorted everything by the six main colors.

I then sorted them even more specifically and arranged each stack from light to dark.

I began the layout process with four white squares and worked out in all directions with other basic colors.

My overall goal was to make it look like a photograph that is zoomed all the way in to the point you see the individual pixels.  If you've ever done this, you've seen that some pixels seem to be the wrong color or in the wrong place.  Some of the squares don't fit perfectly where they are located at in the design, and that's one of the things I love about the quilt.

This stack didn't make the cut.  It's mostly the Dusty palette that didn't fit in well with the other colors.  They were just too muted for the look I was going for.

The final design was 29x29 squares.  I pieced it in rows of 9 or 10 depending on the section.

I don't have any pictures of the quilting process, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.  I simply started in the middle of the white squares and went around and around and around.  I wouldn't recommend this with a quilt much larger than this.  The inner 6" or so were quite difficult, but as I worked my way out toward the edges of the circle, it wasn't a problem at all to turn the quilt. 

I admit this is one of my favorite quilts, but I always have more love for my quilts that are uniquely mine rather than one starting from a pattern or other design.  It makes me happy to have it on our wall. Although I still think it's a little weird to hang quilts for some reason.  I think it just makes me feel old to hang quilts on my wall.  I feel like I will become the crazy quilt lady.  Oh wait, I probably already am.

Put the Needle on the Record...

We have featured Val from Pink Please before, she sure whips up some darling projects. How much do you love this quilt? I don't even understand how people are making these things! I am going to check out her tutorial that she just has featured on Moda Bake Shop. One day I will make one of these things! Thanks Val!

This quilt was born when a good high school friend of mine, Liz, became pregnant with her first child, Vivian. Liz recently lost her father, who was an exceptional man, and I wanted to make her an extra special gift from the heart.  For her baby shower, I decided to make Baby Viv a little quilt.  Well, it started out as a quilt, and ended up more as a playmat. 

I've been trying to get more creative with naming my quilts. The name, "Put the Needle on the Record," was born because I had quilted it in a pattern that looks just like lines on a record.  I couldn't resist the "needle" pun either.

Baby Viv on her new playmat.

I was inspired to make this quilt by this picture.  I searched for a pattern on how to make it, but couldn't find one...so I made one up.  I was lucky enough to have my tutorial featured on Moda Bake Shop.  Head on over there if you have a special baby that needs a quilt just like this.  I've also included how to make a matching changing pad from the scraps of the playmat.  If you'd rather not cut into your stash, you can make both the playmat and changing pad with just one Jelly Roll of fabric!

I hope it brightens your day.

A little more to the story: 

Jenny of Sew Kind of Wonderful and I have been emailing back and forth about the name of this quilt. 

Jenny: "Isn't the name of your quilt in a song?  cause I'm singing something in my head!"

Val: "Yep!  I can't thik of who sings it...is it the Beastie Boys?

Jenny:  "Maybe...it was a fun rap in the early 90's."

Val:  (after googling it)  "PUMP UP THE VOLUME!!!  That's it!"

I. heart. google.  What did we do in critical situations like this before it existed?

~Val

Thanks to Quilt Story for featuring this blog post!

Silverlily colorwheel quilt...

Cute Tyra from Silverlily likes to sew made this super darling color wheel quilt for her playroom wall. I LOVE it. I think it is sweet to make for a playroom. It is so eye catching. Tyra has a great blog with lots of cute quilt projects. Plus she has a darling etsy shop too... thanks Tyra...


I just finished this color wheel quilt.  The pattern is from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.  When I first perused the book after I'd gotten it about two years ago from the library, I saw this pattern and thought, that is so pretty but there is no way I could make that.  I was totally intimidated by the curved pattern.  But for some reason we were rearranging our playroom/office/my studio room and I looked at one of the blank walls and thought, this wall needs the Color Wheel quilt.  I pulled out the book and read through the pattern again.  I thought, well maybe it is doable and since I was starting up with the StashPact2011 group on Flickr I thought this would be the perfect first project to start going through my stash.  So I got started on it and once I did, I just fell in love with it.  It came together so beautifully and now that its done I LOVE how its warmed up the room with all its bright colors.

I finished the Color Wheel quilt and hung it yesterday.  YAY!  I took it to the park in hopes to work on it while Asher slept in the stroller and Carver played in the sand (its basically spring time here in California).  Doesn't that sound nice?  Unfortunately Asher had other ideas and decided that he needed to be held.  What's a mama to do?  Luckily both boys napped very well that afternoon and I was able to finish up the binding and hang it up.

I love, love, LOVE how it warms up the playroom.   (Don't tell but I hung it up with push pins...I know... bad bad bad...But it worked!)  I just want to sit and stare at it all day.

It was a fantastic way to utilize the stash and really added some great and needed color to our playroom walls.