Winter Rainbow block tutorial

Winter Rainbow is the block I've designed for my month in our QCA Bee #2. I am giving instructions for the standard block as well as for a more improv block.

Dig into your scraps for some rainbow colours. You will need a small piece of each colour - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - as well as a gray solid for the background. I've used Kona Ash in my block, but any gray solid is fine.

1. Cut one 2.25 x 3.5 inch rectangle from each colour (7 in total).

 

2. Cut one 10 x 13 inch rectangle from the gray background fabric.

3. Sew the coloured rectangles together in the correct order (think ROYGBIV) and press.

4. Cutting straight from top to bottom, cut the piece of background fabric into two rectangles. I made my cut 3 inches from the left hand side, making one 3 x 13 inch rectangle and one 7 x 13 inch rectangle, but I love a bit of variation in my blocks, so position your rainbow where you think it looks good. Just make sure the rainbow isn't too close to the edge of the block to allow some room for seam allowance and trimming. A minimum of 1.5 inches would be good.

5. Sew the two rectangles of background fabric to the pieced strip and press.

6. All done!

This block finishes at 13 inches square, but if you feel like creating something a little more improv, here is the method I used to create different sized blocks.

1. Cut 1 rectangle the same size from each colour. Mine were 1.25 in x 3 in. Stitch together in order (ROYGBIV). Add a rectangle of the background fabric to either side of the rainbow strip. The rectangles of background fabric need to be big enough to make the block wider than the height. eg. my rainbow strip was 6 in high, so I added about 2.5 in to either side.

2. Trim the top and bottom.

3. Square the block up by trimming the sides. My block is 6 inches high, so I trimmed so it measured 6 inches wide, making sure that the rainbow strip is offset from the centre.

4. Ta da! All done.

I went through my scraps and just used whatever scrap I found the was the correct colour, but in hindsight, I think the tone-on-tone prints in the first block showed the rainbow colours off better. BUT, feel free to improvise and have fun with this block.

Please, if anything doesn't make sense, just ask and I'll clarify.