Rainbow Blends: Quilter's Color Quest
How’s your Color Quest coming? I hope you’re enjoying each step of the journey. Today I’ll talk a bit about the last topic for April. It’s the Rainbow Blends chapter, which begins on page 44 of my book The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color: A Hands-on Workbook for Mastering Fabric Selection. Take a moment to read pages 44-48.
If you’ve been quilting for some time, you’ve probably experimented with creating a rainbow blend. It’s one of the more obvious ways to use all the colors. And since a rainbow does welcome all the colors, it’s an especially nice concept for scrap quilts.
In fact, the Bear Tracks quilt that’s featured in my Quilter’s Color Quest button (and on the back of the book) is a rainbow blend. Nothing fancy! Just rainbow order, with gradual transitions between the hues.
This chapter of my book aims to help you understand how to make smooth transitions between colors, and how these concepts can help you when it comes to non-rainbow color schemes.
Ok, here’s a throwback for any longtime Stitched in Color readers. Do you remember Bottled Rainbows? Dig deep in your WIP pile. Maybe you have a few blocks tucked away all this time!
Way back in 2011, I led a quilt-along inspired by my tiniest scraps. I used to keep them in glass mason jars (those early days!). They were “bottled rainbows” just waiting to be released. Here are all the blog posts for the free Bottled Rainbows pattern and quilt-along.
This is the logo for the quilt-along and also the layout for our finished Bottled Rainbow blocks. We made one block with scraps in each of these sixteen colors. The color names correspond to Kona solids, by the way.
Can you spot the rainbow blend happening here? How is it organized?
It’s not a vertical arrangement, like my Bear Tracks quilt at the start of this post. In that quilt the colors fall from red above down through to blue below. The blend is vertical.
It’s not a diagonal arrangement, like the example on page 47 of my book. That Rainbow Tilt-a-Whirl quilt has a rainbow blend that travels evenly on diagonal through the quilt.
So, if you have the book, you guessed it - the rainbow blend is circular, like the last example on page 47. You can see the rainbow blend if you focus on the outer blocks only. The inner blocks are related to each quadrant.
Rainbow blends offer endless possibilities. And, actually, it’s been awhile since I made a rainbow quilt. Maybe the last time was when I shared a free pattern for a Rainbow Picnic blanket. It’s probably time to return to this cheery color story!
The swatch and patchwork challenges for this chapter (pg 49) ask you to create your own rainbow blend, choosing twelve colors first from swatches and then from your fabric stash. Don’t have all the right colored fabrics for your block? That’s understandable. It is a challenging project! If you find certain colors are missing in action, make a mental note. All of us tend to favor certain colors, but enlarging the variety in your stash will allow for more fresh experiences in the future!
Keep adding your challenge photos to #quiltersfieldguidetocolor and #quilterscolorquest on Instagram. On May 1st I’ll choose a random winner for April, from all the images tagged with @quilterscolorquest. There are two very pretty custom fabric bundles from Sojo Fabric up for grabs! Good luck.
