Block #1: Rainbow Strips

This is the first quilt I imagined as I planned this rainbow sampler quilt.  I thought of making cascading strips of color, possibly grouping all same colors together (red, red, red, instead of red, orange, yellow, etc.).  In the end, I went with a repeating rainbow pattern.

I wracked my brain to come up with a cheater way of making this block.  The original idea I had was to cut strips of fabric 1.5″x6.5″ in both the colors and the background fabric.  Then, I would sew them together (white-color-white) to make strips totaling 18.5″ – way in excess of the 12.5″ I needed.  I would line up the strips in the pattern I wanted on my cutting mat and cut off the excess.  The problem was, I wanted this to be precise, and that method did not lend to precision.

So, I had to painstakingly design, measure, and cut every little bit of that background fabric.  The hard part was making sure I didn’t make an error in sewing the pieces together.  It would be easy to mistake a 2.25″ wide piece of fabric for a 2.5″ one!  In the end I’m satisfied with the way it came out, but not exactly loving it.  Maybe I’ll try again with thinner strips, or possibly with more variation in the spacing.