Project Quilting 10.5 Abecedarius

This was a hard challenge for me this week.  Abecedarius: where the first word of every line of a poem follows the alphabet.  Or in other words, do something with the alphabet. I like words on quilts, but wasn't sure what to do with so many word options.

I got to thinking about names on quilts. My husband loves names on quilts.  This is our usual conversation when ever I make a quilt for someone:

Hubby:  Are you going to put their name on it?

Me: Yeah, it will be in the label.

Hubby: Are you sure you don't want to put their name real big on the front? In the piecing? or glued on there in fabric?

Me: This design doesn't call for their name real big on the front.

Hubby: Oh, well I think it will make it look good with their name on the front.  Real big.

So in honor of that I decided to go with a name...  real big... on the front.  I just had to pick a name.  Kid names are the easiest, nieces and nephews are always easy to make quilts for, but which one?

I still wanted to keep it somewhat on the theme of Abecedarius,  I didn't want to do the whole alphabet though.  Just wanted to focus on one letter.  I do love to work in rainbow color.  So I was going to do "R is for Rainbow" and "R is for (insert name here)". So whose named started with R? there were several, but one jumped right out at me because her name also had the same number of letters as the colors in the rainbow:  Raelynn.  Perfect.  

R is for Rainbows and Raelynn

I love the geometric block letters designed by Quiet Play.  They are nice and big and blocky, just what I was looking for.  They finish at 6 inches.  I just needed a rainbow to go around them. So I got to designing.  Each letter would represent a color in the rainbow and have three shades of that color in strips above and below it.  And since the letters were going to have a white background they could be in a cloud.

  I used excel for this one.  I do have EQ8, but haven't mastered making my own layouts yet and since I was pressed for time I went with what I know I could design with pretty quick. 

All the strips are 2.5 inches and I needed three of each color  plus an extra red and purple for the ends x 2.  That is 46 strips.  I decided to use the Accuquilt cutter that was sent to me as part of being an Island Batik Ambassador.  I used the die that cuts 2.5 strips and cut out all my strips lickety split and they came out perfect. I used to think I was already quick enough cutting 2.5 inch strips with my rotary cutter, but this was super nice and I did it in about the same time and they came out perfect, no shaving off 1/8 of an inch when the ruler moves.

The quilt measures 46 x 72. 

My husband loves this quilt.  It has all three things he thinks a quilt should be.

1. Has to be big

2. Has to have a name on it - on the front.

3. Has to have blue in it.

Make sure to check out all the other entries  HERE to see how everyone else interpreted the theme.  Scroll down till you see all the square thumbnails and at 1 pm central time vote for your favorites by clicking on the red heart in corner.

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