Rainbow Rivers

I’m slowly chipping away at those almost, nearly, not quite, but really-I-promise-surely-please-good-god-it-must-be-almost finished works-in-progress! Every time I think I only have one more WIP, I seem to find about seven others hiding out. It’s like they form a fabric gang in my studio, ready to pounce on me when I’m sleeping. Lawd, if those fabrics could speak! Welcome to Rainbow Rivers, my latest take on the Delectable Mountains quilt block.

This quilt started as a class sample on my design wall. (Shout out to my design wall, whoop, whoop!) While I’ve made this quilt iteration a few times, I always get excited by new fabric combinations. I had stashed this background fabric from Alison Glass’s Art Theory range called Rainbow Stitched Dark way back when I was making my Rainbow Mountains quilt. I thought I might have used it for the binding, but then I ended up doing that insanely, meticulously pieced-binding instead. Since then I’ve been (st)itching to use it!

Since it’s a rainbow of Alison Glass colours, what better fabric to use than a rainbow of other Alison Glass fabrics. When it’s that obvious, don’t try and fight it. Give in to the rainbow! I wanted to show you these two photos of my process, so you can see how I start thinking about colour. I wanted to ensure there was an even representation of cool and warm fabrics, so that the quilt felt balanced. Balance in a quilt provides a sense of visual harmony, ease, and calmness. By doing this in the beginning, it made arranging the final blocks a much easier process. (Reminder: cool = blue, purple, green; warm = red, yellow, orange)

Conversely, if you had nearly all warm-coloured blocks, and then only a few cool-coloured blocks, the quilt could potentially feel compositionally weighted to one side. This can create more visual conflict and drama, so some colourful food for thought! Each Delectable Mountains block contains thirty-two pieces. Now, this seems like a whole helluva lot, but it’s really easy construction. I’m hoping to release my version of this pattern later this year, so stay tuned for that!

As I started piecing the blocks together, and then putting the blocks with other blocks, I was pleasantly surprised at how well that background fabric was blending with itself. It felt like an aerial view of the multi-coloured rapids in a river smashing against each other and the rocks rising between it all–hence the name, Rainbow Rivers. You’ll also notice that the foreground fabrics I used are mostly tone-on-tone and small scale. This is because I knew that with all of those seam lines, using large-scale, multi-coloured prints would look too confused. Instead I wanted each “rock” to have a defining colour.

The longarm quilting was done by the prolific Leanne of Mount Vincent Quilts using Urban Elementz “Ikat #2” digital edge-to-edge design. The Ikat pattern was one I picked for this quilt to compliment the same vertical shape of the rocks, but not to over-emphasise the sharpness that is so prevalent in the piecing. I also requested a rainbow variegated thread so that it blends with the background river, and I love how you can see little pops of colour smashing onto the rocks.

Get involved with your long armer, folks! Spend some time going through some edge-to-edge designs at any of the sites like Urban Elementz and screen shot / notate your favourites. Then when it comes time to have your quilt long armed, you have a whole bunch of design options ready to go. I’m all the time telling Leanne, “I want this quilt, with this pattern.” Sometimes she says, “Um, no bitch, that’s gonna look ugly.” :::cackle::: (*Note, she doesn’t really say that.) But your long armer can help you make technical decisions about the type of pattern you want. Point being, get involved! Plus, look at that texture! Swoon!

I had very good reason to finish Rainbow Rivers over the last week, as there’s been a new addition to my family! My younger cousin, Lindsey, welcomed her first daughter into the world today! Like, a few hours ago, today. This is Grandma Sparkles first great-granddaughter, so she is understandably excited. I mean, we all are, but grandmas do this thing where they might spontaneously combust with excitement about grand babies. I’ve yet to experience it myself, but I’m sure it’s scientific fact! Anywho, newborn, Livi, is yawning and stretching and trying to come to life. (Girl, I feel ya every damn day.)

While this quilt didn’t originally have a recipient in mind, once I started thinking about it, it felt right. This quilt is typical Molli: bold, sharp, bright, rainbowy, colourful and made of a lot of pieces. Grandma Sparkles is going to mule it back to Oklahoma for me, so Livi can chart her own course through the river rapids of life. I doubt Livi will have anything like it, but I may have to send her some sunglasses so she can rock those at night, too.

Title: Rainbow Rivers
Size: 61″ x 53″
Pattern: Delectable Mountains
Fabric: Molli Sparkles curated bundle of Alison Glass fabrics
Piecing: Machine stitched on Juki TL-98P with Aurifil 40wt, White 2024
Quilting: Long arm quilting by Mount Vincent Quilts using Urban Elementz “Ikat #2”
Binding: Hand stitched with Aurifil 50wt, Black 2692
Backing: Entwine in Hyacinth Checkers by Giucy Giuce
Timing: February 2022 – February 2024
Favourite Part: That it started as a single piece of fabric, and became an object with familial resonance.