Sew the Rainbow Sampler Quilt
Sew the Rainbow is a quick and easy quilt pattern that you can whip up in no time! Made from some of the most commonly used quilt blocks, this pattern is perfect for new and experienced quilters alike. Go full rainbow or switch it up with a monochrome ombré for a striking and fun skill building quilt. The pattern is jam packed with helpful tips and diagrams and includes lots of ideas for different colour schemes and a colouring page to help you choose your fabric layout and colours. Best of all, it’s fat quarter and fat eighth friendly, so raid your stash or head to your LQS for a little shopping - we all know you can never have too much fabric!
Choosing my fabrics
As this pattern is based on fat eighths and is very scrap friendly, when pulling my fabrics for this quilt I decided to raid my stash, and I had a lot of fun mixing and matching prints and shades to build my perfect rainbow. As always, my cat Lyra had strong opinions about my choices and insisted on “helping”.
The fabrics I used are:
Red: Scandi Storm by Makower and Sew Retro Leaves by Riley Blake
Orange: Twist & Shout by Rivers Bend
Yellow: Redux Petri by Giucy Giuce
Light green: Moda Day in Paris by Zen Chic and Enchanted Strings by unknown
Dark green: Moda Day in Paris by Zen Chic and Compass Sunprints by Alison Glass
Light blue: Good Vibes Only by Windham fabrics (I had to dig into my draw of selvedges to remember that one!)
Dark blue: New Horizons Dots and Dashes by Dashwood and Acadia High Tide by Michael Miller
Purple: Fab-BOO-lous by Riley Blake and Linen Texture in Lilac by Makower
Sashing: Linen Texture in Baby Blue by Makower
Background: Life’s Journey by Dashwood
Binding: Linen Texture in Baby Blue by Makower
Piecing
A sampler quilt with a modern vibe, the Sew the Rainbow Sampler is very beginner friendly and simple to piece as well as fun to make for experienced quilters too. With step by step instructions and lots of diagrams to help you with each stage of assembly, even if you’ve never quilted before you’ll be making progress in no time. I regularly teach this pattern in an eight week evening class aimed at quilting newbies and I’m yet to have someone fail to love their finished quilt!
Quilting
It took me quite a while to decide how to quilt my Sew the Rainbow Sampler as I wanted to do something quite intricate that worked with all the different block shapes. Eventually I decided on this edge-to-edge basket weave pattern (I love an edge-to-edge design as it means no threads to bury) as it creates a beautiful texture and I think it complements the design quite nicely.
I used 40wt Aurifil in 2021 and spent some quality time with my walking foot after first marking up with my Hera marker. I started off quilting the main grid before getting into the fiddly detail of each square’s stripes. My top tips for any machine quilted design involving lots of short stop-start turns like this design is to go nice and slowly, and look to the point you’re aiming for rather than your needle or foot. Don’t be afraid to manually turn your needle a little back or forth to get the exact point of the turn either - it will help your keep your points nice and sharp. As you can imagine, with so many turning points this was a pretty time consuming quilting plan, but I absolutely LOVE how it looks and have zero regrets about my choice.
As always, my cat co-workers had final approval and decided it makes an excellent play mat for their toys (exactly what I made it for, of course…).
Make it your own with some colour inspiration
One of my favourite things about designing patterns is just how different they can look with different colours! I know how much you all love switching up colours in patterns too, so I had a little play and came up with some colourways to inspire you. Still looking for more inspiration? I’ve got you covered - the pattern includes more ideas for different colour schemes and colouring pages to help you choose your fabric layout and colours for your perfect Sew the Rainbow Sampler. Feel free to mix up the block order too - as you can see in the student quilts, this layout is just a suggestion!
And there you have it - the Sew the Rainbow Sampler!
You can get your own copy of the pattern now by clicking the button below. Remember, I absolutely love to see your makes, so don’t forget to share your projects with #SewTheRainbowSampler and #CaitLisleDesigns hashtags!