Rainbow Fields Quilt
Rainbow Fields is a super quick and easy pattern that you can whip up in no time! Perfect for beginner quilters, go full rainbow or switch it up with a two colour ombré for a striking and fun quilt.
The pattern includes instructions for a fun baby quilt (33” x 37”) as well as a large throw (66” x 74”) that’s perfect for curling up under. On top of this, the pattern is jam packed with helpful tips and diagrams and includes lots of ideas for different colour schemes and a colouring page to help you choose your fabric layout and colours. Best of all it’s Fat Eighth and Fat Quarter friendly, so grab that bundle you’ve been hoarding or head to your LQS for a little shopping - we all know you can never have too much fabric!
Choosing my fabrics
If you’ve read the blogs on my rainbow Resonance Quilt and Rainbow Burst Quilt you’ll know how much I love the Spectrastic II collection by Giucy Giuce. This is definitely one of my favourite blender collections of all time and I immediately knew that it was ideal for the Rainbow Fields pattern - the breadth of shades make for the perfect extended rainbow! Fun fact - this is actually the third quilt to be made from the same FQ bundle (I’m a little bit convinced it’s magic and will never run out).
The fabrics I used are:
Rainbow: Magenta // Mars* // Terracotta // Sunset* // Peach // Spicy Mustard // Bicycle // Mint Chocolate // Moss* // Seaweed // Turquoise // Dark Teal // Aquatic // Navy // Old Amethyst*
Background: Mimeograph
Binding: Mimeograph
*from the Spectrastic I collection
Piecing
For a quilt with a big modern impact, Rainbow Fields is very beginner friendly and simple to piece as well as fun to make for experienced quilters too. Easy to whip up in no time, it would be a great pattern for last-minute gift-giving!
With step by step instructions on strip piecing and lots of diagrams to help you with each stage of assembly, even if you’ve never quilted before you’ll be making progress in no time. Chain piecing really helps speed things up for this quilt, especially in the early steps - if you’ve not chain pieced before check out my previous blog for some handy tips to get you on your way.
Quilting
It took me quite a while to decide how to quilt my Rainbow Fields quilt as I was worried about doing justice to the pattern and fabrics! Eventually I decided on the Diamonds in Diamonds walking foot quilting design from Walk 2.0 by Jacquie Gering. I love an edge-to-edge design because it means no threads to bury - hurrah! Burying threads is my least favourite part of the whole quilting process so whenever I can avoid it, I do!
I used 28wt Aurifil in 2600 and spent some quality time with my walking foot after marking up with my Hera marker. My top tip for any machine quilted design involving lots of short stop-start turns like this design is to go nice and slow, and look to the point you’re aiming for rather than your needle or foot. Don’t be afraid to manually turn your needle a little back or forth to get the exact point of the turn either - it will help your keep your points nice and sharp. As you can imagine, with so many turning points this was a pretty time consuming quilting plan for a wall-hanging, but I absolutely LOVE how it looks and have zero regrets about my choice.
As always, my cat co-workers Lyra and Aurora were very “helpful” throughout the whole process. They were especially helpful when I was tying to quilt - for some reason they were convinced it was the best bed ever and they just HAD to examine every stitch!
Make it your own with some colour inspiration
One of my favourite things about designing patterns is just how different they can look with different colours! I know how much you all love switching up colours in patterns too, so I had to have a little play and came up with some colourways to inspire you! Still looking for more inspiration? I’ve got you covered - the pattern includes more ideas for different colour schemes and colouring pages to help you choose your fabric layout and colours for your perfect Rainbow Fields Quilt. My tester team did a great job of playing with colours and patterns too so don’t forget to head over to the tester parade to see what they got up to.
And there you have it - the Rainbow Fields Quilt!
You can get your own copy of the pattern now by clicking the button below. Remember, I absolutely love to see your makes, so don’t forget to share your projects with #RainbowFieldsQuilt and #caitlisledesigns hashtags!