Quilt Finish – Rainbow Mountains

This may be one of the greatest quilts I’ve ever made! If nothing else, it’s the most rainbow-tastic, saturated, and colourful quilts of my career. It is imbibed with all the challenges my family and I have faced over the past few years. It looks completely cheerful, and while that was the intent, it was done so as an effort to overcome a lot of personal tragedy. There are about a thousand pieces of this puzzle all connected to create a cascade of colour.

When I first debuted the finished quilt top in September 2020, I had this to say about it:

“I decided to call it Rainbow Mountains because it represents quite a difficult period of my life. I’ve given you a glimpse of what’s been happening the past few months, and I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences. The world is fucking rough right now. Like pineapple up-the-bum rough. Despite that, I’ve tried to traverse the challenges to see the rainbows in every situation. Sometimes you’ve gotta climb a mountain to get the best view, and if not, you just build your own damn rainbow-coloured mountain. That’s what this quilt represents.”

The quilt top itself went on to become the backdrop of my own wedding ceremony. (If interested in that festive event, you can check out my Wedding of Sparkles: Bits of Confetti post.) As soon as it came down, I whisked it away to Leanne of Mount Vincent Quilts for the longarm quilting. We had previously decided Mike’s Swoosh quilting pattern would be the perfect compliment to the ombre effect of the quilt. It provides an even greater flow across the quilt, with a subtle, shimmering movement.

When it came to decide the binding, I had initially thought about using black to frame it. However, I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt the lava flow of colour. So instead, I colour matched pieced binding strips to each adjacent mountain block ensuring they lined up perfectly at each seam line. “This seems like a lot of work,” I hear you say! Damn straight it was! Heaven’s to Betsi, it took a lot of trial and error to get two-inch stretches of binding to line up! But in the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Dive into the ocean, honey! Those blues and teals and aquamarines have got me swooning like I’m drunk in love. Oh wait, I think I am! Since I’ve had it home and complete, I’ve basically just been staring at it in awe every day. Like, did I make this? I’m still shocked by the power of fabrics and quilting. Speaking of, this quilt contains 129 different Alison Glass fabrics across many of her ranges. They work so effortlessly together, this is another one of those experiences I’m gonna have to go experience again.

I’m currently working on a workshop program on how I constructed this beauty. While it uses a traditional Delectable Mountains quilt block, I developed a construction method to make each of them interlock. If you or your quilt guild are interested in some remote demonstrations make sure you hit me up! I’d love to show you and your fellow quilters how to make your own rainbow love affair come true!

And don’t fret, because the backing is also Alison Glass, using two fabrics from her more recent Art Theory range. It’s literally a rainbow wrapped inside a rainbow! I do hope you love it as much as I do, as I’ll probably be oversharing it on Instagram for weeks to come. If it has taught me nothing else, it’s that when you need love, let rainbows lead the way.

Title: Rainbow Mountains
Size: 96″ x 105″
Pattern: Delectable Mountains — the Molli Sparkles way
Fabric: 129 different Alison Glass fabrics
Piecing: Machine stitched on Juki TL-98P with Aurifil 50wt, White 2024
Quilting: Long arm quilting by Mount Vincent Quilts using Mike’s Swoosh design
Binding: Pieced-binding using matching fabrics, hand stitched with various, coordinating Aurifil threads
Backing: Alison Glass Art Theory Overall In Night and Rainbow Feather Night
Timing: May 2020 – July 2021
Favourite Part: It served as my Wedding of Sparkles backdrop, and a new technique springboard.