Clam shell

This traditional quilt pattern, ‘clam shell’, I actually haven’t made it until now. I know how to make it and it is a bit tricky especially piecing on a sewing machine rather than hand appliqué. That wasn’t a bothering part of it for me but cutting each shape was…. Anyway, back in this July, I decided to make something with it.
I chose to use 4″ diameter pattern just because I didn’t want the finished quilt to be too big and maybe something of cushion cover size? But there were so many cushion covers I had already. So I started without any particular plan.

Before the bottom row, there were 18 clamshells and I decided that was enough! It only grew 2″ with each row. At the very start, I thought of placing them randomly but rainbow gradation looked more interesting, didn’t it?

And I wanted to add more rainbow bit.

And something in between? I had a bit f rainbow stripe fabric to use up for geese and more narrow scraps to make rainbow but then I thought them to be nicer if they were scattered…

I added same fabric as a border at the bottom but didn’t want to darken all the sides as well as it was a quite heavy colour.

Inserted a fresh green of 1/4″ stripe.

It needed something more and I thought it was nice to have stars!

And then dark night sky.

The mustard green at the bottom was to balance out the scrappy blue borders and I added burnt orange border on the left and bottom again. Ant it was around 40″ which is a nice small size quilt.

Quilting.
Rainbow and night sky in mind and I needed to do some doodling!

Rainbow arches were quilted first.

And a lot of filling on the background.

Rainbow colours coming down from the sky like Aurora.

Each clamshells were quilted differently,

The inspiration was rainbow layered cakes!

Stars in the windy sky.

Night sky with shooting lights.

Just followed around pretty print pattern.

And the view from the back.

And the front!

I am calling it ‘rainbow at night’.

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