Rainbow Unicorn Quilt

My Miss 5 is soon turning 6 and naturally a birthday calls for a new quilt. Particularly as she's had the same quilt on her bed for *gasp* 3 years. It wasn't hard to decide what should feature on her quilt as she's a little bit unicorn obsessed. Preferably rainbow unicorn. So what's a rainbow-loving quilty mother to do but design a new unicorn pattern and use all her favourite rainbow prints to bring it to life!

(Please note, there are like a gazillion photos coming, but consider yourself lucky that I pared that back from a bazillion to a mere gazillion). 

Ah this does make my quilty heart sing. It's the biggest quilt I've made in some time and wasn't exactly fun to quilt, but so worth it. My Little Miss was involved in every step of making this quilt - from choosing fabrics, and helping decide on the layout. I love that she is so interested in what I make and do - and I'm hoping this means she'll love her quilt FOREVER. She better.

I used a mix of SunPrints from 2015 and 2016 for the unicorn's mane and tail - in colour order, naturally. I'll admit, I was pretty happy with how it was going at this point, but I felt it needed something else. So I had a bit of a play with my EQ7 sketch before I committed to anything more on the quilt block.

 Aha! It needed a wreath! Obviously! As you can see my original plan for the unicorn was one with much pink and purple - but my Little Miss had other ideas - and I think she was so right in choosing a rainbow theme!

So after deciding the unicorn needed a wreath - which would be too hard to piece,  and I don't like applique - I cracked out the old embroidery skills. I'll be the first to admit it's not perfect, but my daughter loves it. There are 6 flowers in each colour - because she's turning 6. Of course.

The next part of the plan was to add in more rainbow! My favourite Blueberry Park by Karen Lewis to the rescue! I just adore the bright happy colours of Blueberry Park and they play so nicely with SunPrints!

So with some lovely simple patchwork that shows off the prints beautifully, I added Blueberry Park Rainbow stripes to the top and bottom of the quilt. And while we're on this photo, let's briefly discuss the quilting. I'm no good at free motion quilting. For me, I like to show off the piecing and design more than the quilting as that's where my heart lies. So it was my standard straight line quilting (1" lines apart) to the rescue. I'm rather happy with it!

The backing is pure rainbow unicorn vomit. My daughter chose it at the shops and could not be talked into a more subtle rainbow stripe, or something with a white background. I tried, really I did. But it's her quilt, and it's the back.

So rainbow unicorn vomit it is. I actually kinda love it now. As you can see it wasn't quite big enough so I added some pink solid in - which formed a giant L. Appropriate as that's the first letter in my girl's name. Let's call it deliberate piecing. Uhuh.

We went off for a wander into the great Aussie bush to find a spot for photos. We braved itchy grass, kangaroo poo and potential snakes and ticks - but Miss 5 was very brave and keen for the adventure. She's responsible for the full length photos of the quilt - doesn't do a bad job does she!

A last few details! The block is a 25" square. I've decided to keep it at that size when I release the pattern in both my Craftsy shop and Payhip shop (which will be very soon). It's fairly detailed around the mane, so a bigger block makes it a little easier to piece. Final quilt size is 52" x 90".

So there you have it! A rainbow unicorn quilt for a rainbow loving, unicorn obsessed nearly 6 year old. I'm a bit in love and so is she. Now to wait for the next month until her birthday and we can actually put it on her bed!

Usual disclaimer: While I do not have direct paid sponsorship on my blog, I am a Craftsy affiliate and receive commission payments based on affiliate links that I may include within my blog posts. A girl's got to help fund her fabric addiction somehow ;)