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.