No Pot of Gold

You won't find a pot of gold at this rainbow's end, because it doesn't have one! But I liked it so much, I couldn't bring myself to give it away, so I'm finishing it for myself!

As blogged the other day, I designed it for a second baby, to match the one I made for the first. I spent ages doodling with curvy lines before hitting in the circle idea, which I instantly liked. The centre black circle is 12in diameter adn the whole circle is 24in. Unfortunately it meant applique, but I'm doing more of that these days - and getting better and faster at it! And now I've had to deisgn another, which I need to get to work on!

I started the applique last night, using tiny blanket stitches with invisible filament on the machine. About 1/8 of the way around, I decided it was the wrong method, and spent ages unpicking before starting the tedious blind hand-applique. That might be where my attachment formed! Here it is all pinned to applique; I thought the pins gave it a fireworks-effect!

I used the same beautiful multicoloured variegated thread I used in the last quilt; not quite as effective on black as white, but still pretty good. I started the radiating lines freehand, until Simon asked if they were meant to curve? Oops! So I started marking a few guides to keep me straight!

The centre needed quilting, but I didn't want to detract from the rainbow, so put black thread on the spool, and did a small stipple a la Helen. As you can see, I left the rainbow thread in the bobbin; it took a while to get a tension I was happy with where the colour wouldn't show through the front and I didn't get too much black on the back. I like this, though it didn't come up well in the photos:

Now, on to the next design!