Bear Paw Borders Revised: Frankenstein Rainbow Batik

Rainbow Borders Pieced and Ready to Go!

Well, NOW we're getting somewhere!  I managed to get these borders pieced yesterday and I'm feeling better about this quilt again.  I wasn't able to find one perfect fabric for this border that incorporated all of the colors I needed (wanted), so I've pieced these borders from 2" strips of a rainbow batik FQ (fat quarter) and added in 2" squares of the orchid pink batik that I used in the center of my bear paw blocks and one of the turquoise hand marbled fabrics.  

Frankenstein Border Piecing Underway...

Ta Da!  THIS I Like!

I cut these borders at 2", which would give me a 1 1/2" finished border width.  When my Kona Snow solid white fabric comes, I'm going to do a 1 1/2" inner border of solid white, then the rainbow border with mitered corners, and then a wider outer border of solid white.  Although I may decide to make my rainbow border even skinner if it threatens to overpower the rest of the quilt.

Five Works-In-Progress On My Design Wall (More Hiding In the Wings)

Can't do a darned thing with it until my white fabric arrives, though.  But that's fine, because I have A NEW PROJECT that I need to start and finish in a SINGLE DAY...  Curious?  I'll tell you about it when it's FINISHED!  

Have a wonderful Wednesday!  I'm linking up with:

 

·       Let’s Bee Social at http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/

·       Midweek Makers at http://quiltfabrication.blogspot.com/

·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

I Am So Sick Of Looking at This Quilt Already...

Nope!  Still Not Finished Yet!

Are you sick of this quilt, too, or is it just me?  I started making the bear paw blocks and sawtooth stars back in 2014, ran into some issues with one of my hand marbled fabrics bleeding, lost interest and set them aside.  Then thought of gifting it to the pregnant daughter of a friend of mine as a baby quilt, and bought lavender Minky backing and hot pink satin binding to finish it off, and proceeded to make the sawtooth stars and sashing and assemble the top.  Then the baby was born, the quilt wasn't finished, the baby grew up and got her PhD...  Okay, so it hasn't been THAT long, but it has been long enough that the baby shower ship has sailed away.  

Rainbow Sherbet Border and Hot Pink Satin Binding idea

I showed you some options for a colorful outer border that would abut the satin binding a few weeks ago, and I really did plan to use one of them, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it for some reason.  Finally, I decided to scrap the Minky backing and the satin binding and just make a regular baby quilt out of it, like what a normal person would do.  (Not because I'm normal, but because that fits better with my current objectives -- I'd like to tackle a few regular cotton-backed quilts on my longarm machine before I attempt stretchy Minky backing).  And I feel like I want a clean, simple look for this quilt.  I wanted plain WHITE borders.

After rummaging through my studio for a few hours looking for the exact shade of white that I used in the quilt top, I finally found it but discovered that I didn't have a large enough piece left to cut my borders without piecing them.  Drat!  So I then got this idea about piecing some random lengths of bright pastel fabrics from the quilt top in the center of each white border strip, and as you can see in the photo below, that looks REALLY STUPID.  Yuck!

My Terrible Border Idea

And then I remembered this blog, and I pulled up that first blog post from three years ago when this was a brand new project that I was just starting, and was thrilled that I had the foresight to mention in my blog post that I was using Kona Snow for my solid white.  Hooray!!  I ordered two more yards of it online, so now I'm just waiting for it to show up.  Meanwhile, I'm going to remove the white strips from the stupid looking pieced borders I made and make a skinny pieced border that is ALL made from the bright fabrics in my quilt top.  I'll float the skinny bright pieced border between two solid white borders and call that DONE.

I started this project long before I got my EQ7 design software, and I was just kind of winging it as I went along.  I made the bear paw blocks first, then I experimented with different sized sawtooth stars...  Having the ability to do all of that ahead of time, before even purchasing fabric, is such a godsend.  This quilt would have been finished a long time ago if I had a completely finished design figured out before I started making it!

Have a wonderful Tuesday, everyone!