🌈 rainbow star purse

Colour has a big impact on us, it can affect our mood and bring us happiness, especially when its in the form of a rainbow 🌈 We currently have three rainbows displayed in our windows for passersby to spot and smile about! I don't usually work in rainbow order (more on that later) and in fact I don't even arrange my fabric stash by colour but I do enjoy playing about with colour and the satisfaction that comes with choosing fabrics for a project.

Today is my stop on the book tour celebrating the launch of 'Modern Rainbow Patchwork Quilts' by Paula Steel. I am thrilled, not only because Paula is a real life friend who I have had the pleasure of spending time with in our little craft group and I am chuffed to bits for her, because she has created such gorgeous projects in this book! It will entice you to create and the projects in the book include quilts, cushions and mini projects, such as the purse I made. She has thorough and really useful guides for colour, tools and techniques, which makes it super accessible for everyone. Paula's writing style is so personable and honest, just as real as getting great advice and tips from a quilty friend that knows her stuff! It would be hard not to feel happy reading it, I found myself nodding a lot and smiling, I was really inspired.

The project I picked out to make is the rainbow star purse, here is Paula's original from the book: 

credits: photography Jesse Wild @wildjesse and stylist Jaine Bevan @jainebevanstylist

Cleverly Paula used waterproof fabric for the lining on hers so it's perfect for a washbag. I didn't have any nice waterproof fabric though so mine is regular quilting cotton. And now for my confession...

I don't really like rainbows, what I mean is that I don't like sewing rainbows. I don't really like order, or red or purple. I don't even really like bright primary colours. Am I digging a big enough hole here?! What's worse is I told Paula this at one of our crating sessions (hosted at our wonderful friend Michelle's). I literally said 'I hate rainbows and rainbow projects', or something equally opinionated. Of course she LOVES rainbows and colour order and bright, happy rainbow colours. She's written a book about it! Despite knowing that rainbows aren't my favourite (attempt to dig out of that hole slightly), Paula was perfectly gracious and included me on the tour regardless. We did talk about my project not having to be rainbow, using part of a rainbow or another - not primary - rainbow. I went with the later because seeing her rainbow star purse, I just couldn't not create a rainbow!

Rooting through my stash for fabrics in sort of rainbow colours, I came up with a slightly muted rainbow - still modern and definitely a rainbow vibe going on. And it excited me. I never would have thought it but Paula's rainbow influence has affected me - the power of a book!

Picking a print for the centre wasn't difficult, I found a scrap of this Kokka print. It's silver metallic and much better in real life, so fussy cut centre sorted.

My stash has lots of low volume prints and I selected a few favourites, along with a brilliant kawaii cloud print for the lining.

Paula's pattern is really clear, the patchwork piecing was simple and instructions for constructing the rows helped keep seams neat. Once it was pieced I decided to copy the echo quilting inside the star and then added straight lines of quilting coming from the edges of the points of the stars, to create grids. It was fun to quilt!

For the back of the purse I chose one of my very favourite Cocoland Cat prints by Kokka and those cute clouds make a nice lining. You can't have a rainbow without rain!

I also added a cute charm to the zip pull, it didn't really need one but it's CUTE. It also has a rainbow of little stars inside, so well themed!

Every step of this purse creation had me smiling and I'm so happy with the finished rainbow star. It's a brilliant size so I can fill it with a hand sewing project or two and enjoy it everyday. 

Modern Rainbow Patchwork Quilts by Paula Steel is available to purchase from White Owl Books now! And be sure to check out Paula's instagam @paulasteel.quilts - she's having brilliant book tour giveaways!