Sew the Rainbow!

This month's Aurifil Artisan challenge was to make something using 5 or more colors of thread. After thinking for a bit overthinking it, I finally realized I had the perfect thing in my WIP pile! I needed to quilt this NICU size version of my Bundle of Joy pattern! AND October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, so it was the perfect time!

I wrote the Bundle of Joy pattern after having my own rainbow baby (who just celebrated his 1st birthday!). The pattern includes the directions for making a 36" baby quilt and an 18" NICU sized quilt. This NICU sized one just needed quilting and binding!

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The rainbow fabrics are a mix of brands (including Moda and Alison Glass) that I purchased at The Rusty Moon quilt shop in Willow Springs, MO awhile back. The background is the solid light grey by Island Batik. I had used 50wt Aurifil Dove #2600 to piece the rainbow.

I used a scrap piece of gray dot minky for the back, a scrap piece of Warm & Natural batting, and pin basted the sandwich for quilting.

It was easy to find 50wt Aurifil threads that matched the rainbow from my thread stash!

From left to right, the colors are Light Magenta #2588, Medium Delft Blue #2783, Delft Blue #2730, Dark Turquoise #4182, Yellow #2135, Orange #2235, and Red #2250.

I used my walking foot to quilt three lines of each color of thread on the coordinating rainbow stripe.

Then I switched to my free motion foot and quilted clouds using 50wt Aurifil #2024 White.

After squaring the quilt and trimming it to 18", I decided that the scrap of binding leftover from the last quilt I made was the perfect length! And it was a great match to the blue fabric in the rainbow! It is Moda Bella solid in Amelia.

Of course I machine stitched it on! (Tutorial here.)

It feels great to have this quilt move from WIP to DONE!

And the 18" square quilt used NINE colors of 50wt Aurifil thread!

The back really shows off the quilting design.

But the stitches are buried in the minky, so you don't see the colors at all!

When making quilts for the NICU, they don't want any scratchy fabric or threads that could rub on the babies' soft skin, so minky is a fabulous back for quilts you plan to donate to the NICU!

Such a bright and happy rainbow!

I've now made two versions of the NICU size, and in completely different color palettes! I love them both!

If you know any rainbow babies (or mamas expecting rainbow babies!), this is a great pattern to celebrate that!

Link to digital Bundle of Joy pattern
Link to paper Bundle of Joy pattern

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