Focussed Rainbow: A Finished Quilt!

 Hi everyone!

First off, an apology for saying I was going to blog more regularly and then going silent for months. But in my defence, I haven't been procrastinating for stupid reasons, I have taken on a real-world job which is taking up all my time.

But I have still been sewing! And I have not only finished this quilt, but entered it into the Festival of Quilts, so everyone can see over the next few days.

Here is my finished quilt using my blocks from the 2023 #focuscuttingsewalong. I have called it 'Focussed Rainbow'.

Here's what's been going on with the finishing process!

After finishing off the final blocks I needed, I added a border to square off the edges. My initial plan had been a plain border with white or black, but when I put the fabrics against the quilt they didn't look right.

Instead, I decided to emphasize the rainbow effect and continue the colours of each row of blocks into the borders. Thanks to the lovely people of Instagram who almost unanimously voted that this was the best idea.

It probably would have been quicker to appliqué this, but I didn't have long enough pieces of the red and pink for the top and bottom borders. So instead I created some more EPP templates. I think the overall effect is neater.

It's been a race against time to finish this, so it has been coming with me on my train rides recently. Including a trip into London where I went to the V&A and spotted these Islamic tiles made in Iran in 1262. They use the same geometric pattern as my quilt. Thanks so much to the passer-by who took this pic for me.

I hand quilted it using variegated rainbow thread. I was up against the clock trying to get this finished in time for the Festival, so I didn't do as much quilting as I originally hoped, but I am happy with how much I did.

Incidentally, I bought this thread to quilt this Rainbow Hexies quilt, which I still haven't finished. There's tons of thread left over though, so I should still have enough to do this one as well.

But back to Focussed Rainbow - I bound it in black. It's actually the leftover binding I have from my Festival of Quilts entry last year, Hats Off to You. I had so much left over from that process that it was enough to bind another whole quilt.

For the back of the quilt, I pieced together what I had left from the fabrics I used on the filler squares and borders.

So there we have it! An actual finished quilt!

And some close-up pics.

The Festival of Quilts opens today, I will get to see it on Sunday, which is the only day I am going this year. I also have a block in a group quilt this year - #teambearpaw24 - organised by Chris English. I can't wait to go see them both and all the other wonderful quilts by so many other people. So you will soon be getting to see the next edition of the Genevieve Awards. It's going to be fun!

Thanks for reading!