Fabrics for a Sunshowers Quilt

We are settling in at home again after our summer travels, picking up our old rhythms and making some new ones as well. Part of settling in for me is starting a new quilt, and I am very happy that my next project will be a quilt for Elora’s bed!

My seven-year-old daughter has her heart set on a rainbow quilt, with real rainbow arches. I have chosen the Sunshowers pattern from Megan Collins for the patchwork. The background fabrics will be misc. low volumes, instead of one consistent fabric. That’s more fun to sew and more fun on the bed. Since I was running low on low volume fabrics, I did some shopping with Fresh Modern Fabrics, while in the States.

Fresh Modern Fabrics is somewhat of a specialist is modern, low volume fabrics. She has 169 products in her Low Volume category! I had fun picking out a variety of soft-colored fabrics with a range of details. I found some geometrics like stripes, rectangles or dots and some organic prints like plants, woodgrain, and rainbows. The rainbows are part of a larger basics collection: Always Look for Rainbows. I chose the two lightest shades.

I notice that the low volume fabrics that sit longest on my shelf are those with black. I seem to prefer low volumes without bold black accents, probably because they are able to blend easier into the background of a project due to having less internal contrast. This time I have adventurously opted for a few multicolor low volumes, since they should work well with the quilt’s rainbow theme.

Here are my choices, from the top of the stack moving downward.

Left Stack: Mori No Nohara Grass, Far Far Away 3 Wildflowers Cream, Tweedy in Cloud and Mustard, Tarrytown Holepunch Dot Orchid, Zip White, Purebred Barnwood Maiden White, Speckled Natural Metallic.

Right Stack: Clover and Over Narwhal, Always Look for Rainbows Blissful and Modern Love, Speckled Sunstone Metallic, Animal ABS Dottie Stripes Baby Blue, Bound Looming in Stone, Tarrytown Farkle Shell.

The low volume fabrics will become the quilt’s background, but what fabrics should I use for the rainbow arches? I expect to use a mixture of solids and simple prints. For starters, I need to choose between these two rainbow palettes. The vivid colors at left are Ruby and Bee solids by Heather Ross for Windham Fabrics. The softer shades are Chambray Basics by Tilda Fabrics.

As much as I am drawn to Tilda’s softer palette, I know that Elora is craving those bright Ruby and Bee solids. Plus, I do think that the softer rainbow may not stand out so well on the low volume fabrics; whereas, the bolder rainbow will contrast nicely with the background.

At far left I have curated a stack of prints from my stash that jive with the bold rainbow palette. I sought out prints that are evenly filled in with color overall (as opposed to having big white dots, for example) so that the colors will show up clearly in the rainbow arches. Plus, I added a few more of my own low volumes at far right, for a bit more variety.

Okay, this is looking like a lot of fun. Time to start cutting!