April Bunnies and Carrots Completed

In my post for 2/13/16, I described the cutting and piecing of Bunnies and Carrots, the 31"x31" Pieceful Patchwork banner for April from Shabby Fabrics. An equally fun part of the creation process is deciding and performing the FMQ. For each bunny head I stitched parallel diagonal lines ½" apart in the lilac background, focusing attention on the bunny's face. I put hearts in his cheeks, stars for his eyes, and petals within the pink part of his ears. I then echoed the ear shape within the white of his ears. I used pale yellow thread, a little softer and a bit more visible that white would have been. Plus, to me yellow is a happy Easter color, reminding me of fuzzy ducklings.

For the carrot blocks I first delineate their angular shape with echo lines within the orange area. I had fun putting feathers in the green leaves just like their feathery appearance for real. In the blue background around the carrots, I put wavy lines to simulate the brown furrows when carrots are planted in rows. I used HQ Wave F Template with 4" wavelength and shallow ¾ " height, randomly offsetting the waves so they did not align.

For the outer aqua border I used parallel lines to create a piano key border with 1" line spacing. I filled in the inner yellow border with circular arcs to give a kind of lace appearance and to compliment the straight line of the piano keys. The striped binding also repeating the lines of the aqua border.

One label on a back corner reflects the descriptive, although not very imaginative, name of the quilt as BUNNIES_AND_CARROTS. The other label on the opposite corner reflects my initials DIC and the year of completion as DIC_APRIL_2026. The month April is for the month associated with the wall hanging theme, and not specifically the month I finished it. I do really like the pastel plaid provided in the kit for the backing of the banner.

I added a zigzag within the plaid inner sashing in imitation of its angular appearance. The last detail was adding the tiny black eyes. They do add a needed finishing touch. Affixing them was a challenge, nearly losing one button on each of two occasions. Each just slipped out of my finger and scampered off to who knows where, just as a bunny would. My husband was the hero of the realm one of those times, patiently scouring my sewing room floor to locate the wayward culprit.

I did also buy the scroll hanger for displaying these banners monthly. The change out is swift and easy, especially since I hang it low enough to be accessible without a ladder. Here is the completed banner for April, Bunnies and Carrots, right next to the door of my sewing room, helping me remember to smile daily.

Rainbow Brite Mesh Bag

The hardest part of this project was deciding what fabrics to use. My daughter had this precious Rainbow Brite fabric and asked me to make her a mesh project bag using it. Rainbow Brite was a favorite of hers as a child in the second half of the 1980's. The names of the main characters are in the diagram below. She had dolls for every character, plus the horse, as well as the bad guys, Murky Dismal and Lurky. She also collected all the small sprites, courtesy of my maternal indulgences for a first child. The bad guys and the sprites, except for Twink, are not in the fabric.

The pattern I chose was from ByAnnie and needed only three fat quarters. The Rainbow Brite fabric was the first fat quarter. Selecting the other two fat quarters would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong! I created total chaos in my sewing room, auditioning fabric for the other two fat quarters, one for the lining and one for the binding.

These are all the fabrics I rejected for the lining. Although the background of the focus fabric is pink, more pink-heavy prints did not seem to be right, and each distracted from the feature print. Although, I was sorely tempted by the pink polka dot. A rainbow stripe would be a better coordinating option, but an all-pastel blend did not go with the primary tones especially in the dress of the main character Rainbow Brite or the mane of the horse Starlite.

 

Don't laugh, but what I finally selected as best for the lining was a non-busy royal blue swirl fabric that picked up the blue in the feature fabric. I did indeed choose a rainbow stripe for the binding, but it had no brown, no black, and minimal pastels. It did include pink, but did not feature pink predominantly. 

When it came time to pick the color of the mesh, I opted for a crisp blue that fortified the swirl. Pink or yellow mesh, when laid over the blue fabric, seemed to lose its punch and instead read as a wimpy purple or green.

My final decision to make was the zipper color. White would have called attention the Starlite but it was too plain. Yellow was too strong for Canary Yellow. I liked the green to call attention to Patty O' Green.

Here is the bag a various stages. It finished at 11"H x 16"W. The padded, quilted back shows off the feature fabric best. I spaced the quilting lines so as to minimize their interference with the characters faces. The front is made up of the zipper, the mesh, and the bottom border. I made the border fabric a ½" taller and the mesh a ½" shorter so I could maximize the character faces when I fussy cut the bottom border.

The bias binding and the handle, were both cut from the stripes. The binding is on the bias, so the stripes on the diagonal add a touch of interest. For the striped handle, I noted which way to cut the stripes so they ran across the handle rather than along it.

Here is the completed bag, back and front views, finishing with a closeup of the back. Buddy Blue on the right and Indigo on the left got cropped from the closeup view; but, at least Rainbow Brite's horse Starlite and her sprite Twink are there.

I came across this cute story that cites some background information about  the world of Rainbow Brite. The gender twist is a modern day unanticipated avante garde viewpoint, but the article is fun to read and reminisce, anyway. For those interested, here are the other characters not represented in the fabric. Hmm, I wonder if my daughter's Rainbow Brite experiences led to her love of all the colors involved in quilting. 

And for my daughter, here are two YouTube links to all those songs she loved on her Rainbow Brite LP Record; the entire album or each song on an individual track.