I’ve always loved colourful quilts. The first quilt I vividly remember was Paintbox from Elizabeth Hartmann. The pop of the white background and all the colours of the rainbow is music to my eyes! When I first saw a transparency quilt, I instantly fell in love. The effect that the colour choices gives is brilliant. Such a clever trick of the eye. They remind me of watercolour paintings, with the light seeming to emit from the paper.

I don’t know what first sparked this idea in my head, but I’ve been working on it since before Christmas and I’m so excited to have it ready for you all… The Luminous Quilt Pattern! All the colours of the rainbow, sheer and luminous on the quilt. Here are all the details:

This simple pattern uses conventional quilting techniques and includes:
– Directions for two styles of block (rainbow and two-tone)
– Cutting instructions for three different block sizes (12″, 18″ and 24″ blocks)
– Patterns and fabric requirements for a 48 x 48″ rainbow baby quilt and a 48 x 72″ two-tone lap quilt. All 16 KONA colours used for the rainbow block are listed, but many similar coloured solids or prints can be used.

The 12”, 18” and 24” blocks give you great versatility to create quilts of many sizes just as easily as smaller patchwork projects such as cushion covers, wall hangings, table runners, place mats or mug rugs. Take a look here at the gorgeous cushion cover made by Ms Midge who pattern tested for me. Nicola also had fun with pattern testing and made a festive cushion cover and a tote bag.

For more information, head on over to the listing in my shop. There you will find more pictures and details on fabric requirements. 

The pattern is simple enough for a beginner to tackle. It was my first quilt and it could be yours too! The pattern includes step by step instructions for putting the individual blocks together and the quilts.

This is the first quilt I’ve ever made, so please don’t look too closely at my quilting! It was by far the hardest part of the process. I chose to do straight line quilting on the background sections and then a bit of free motion quilting over the coloured squares. I used a grey thread from Aurifil for the FMQ. I went with meandering squares. It’s not quite as neat as I pictured it. Turns out turning corners is quite tricky! I’m still quite pleased with the result and slightly amazed I managed to finish it. I think I found a few new muscles in the process too! I did all the FMQ on my treadle which loved the workout.

Another thing I discovered is that burying thread tails takes forever! I think I spent about 5 hours on that task alone!  Next time I’ll go for an all over quilting design. For the two-tone quilt, I used KONA solids for the main colours and two Andover Chambrays for the overlap fabrics. The backing is a flannelette check I had in my stash. It’s a bit of a mess and the lines of the check go all over the place, but because it’s flannel it’s lovely and soft to lay under so I ignore the wonky-ness.

I used a Lisette poplin for the binding. I had it in my stash leftover from another project and it matched the quilt top perfectly. It took a bit of effort to cut it out so that the pattern showed nicely along the edge, but I love the result! I machine stitched the binding to the front, then turned and hand stitched it to the back. I love this method as the binding stitches are invisible. I think I’m too much of a perfectionist to try machine stitching both sides.

Click here to head on over to my shop to take a look at the Luminous Quilt Pattern.

If you make a Luminous Quilt of your own, please tag it with #luminousquilt and #autumnstreetpatterns on social media, or email me a picture…I’d love to see it!

*Coupon code expires 9th March, 2015.