Rainbows and Clouds Baby Quilt

When making custom baby quilts, it gives me an opportunity to connect with a family.  Their friend or family member relays their story to me and I create something especially for them.  I love watching their story come to life in a quilt.  The recipient of this quilt has been through an immense amount of heart break to welcome this new bundle.

“Without the storms there would be no rainbows,” is the quote from their Facebook announcement.  Baby #6 is on the way.   I’m not even sure how to relay the hard part to you as it’s crushing.  However, I assure you this family is elated and they have the biggest smiles on their face in their announcement.  All the babies before have either miscarried or passed shortly after birth.

Did you just get a huge lump in your throat reading that?  I did just writing it.  It breaks my heart to hear their story and work on something special for them.

If you’re reading this and have experienced the loss of a pregnancy or child, HUGS!  Know that while making this I recalled stories of my own friends and their journeys to create their family.  It’s not always sunshine and rainbows.  Sometimes it’s just a shitstorm and it’s not fair.  You’re not alone and many couples have been there.

After some discussion the rainbow idea was born.  To incorporate all the children I would include six clouds.  I put two clouds at each end of the rainbow for the parents.

Yellow was omitted from the rainbow for two reasons:

  1.  I didn’t have a big enough piece of fabric to coordinate with all the other prints.
  2.  Having six stripes of colors also is a tribute to all six children.

You can really see the clouds in the picture above.  The green grass provides a nice contrast to the gray background.  It’s not a solid gray, it’s Robert Kaufman Spot On in Silver.  I remembered there was some in my stash and thought it would be a great background.

For quilting I went with free motion loops.  It gives such a nice crinkle to the finished quilt.  Solid yellow is on the back and rounds out the colors of the rainbow.  Adding black and white binding gives the piece a frame.  Not only did I want this to be a quilt, but later on could be used as wall art.

The clouds kind of disappear and the rainbow shines bright.

One detail you can’t see unless you’re up really close (extreme close up not included) is the thread color around the clouds.  I used a very light blue as the bobbin thread and it gives each cloud a little glow.

The quilt is off to it’s new home this weekend.  I hope the parents enjoy the quilt, but mostly new baby snuggles soon.  Thoughts to them as they anxiously await the arrival of baby #6.

All fabrics are from my stash or scraps.