Rainbow bargello- playing with colour

I am just loving this little quilt block. I love rainbow colours and this bargello design really shows of the rainbow effect to perfection. I also like the irony of the 'hippiness' of rainbow colour scheme married with the precise geometry required for the bargello style. Unfortunately my piecing doesnt really run to precision- as hard as I tried I couldnt get all the corners of the 1" squares to meet. I have done a little mini-tute for how to construct the bargello block, because its really quite clever. Plus I need to remember how I did it as I wont be able to continue with this quilt for a few weeks!

First up collect up a selection of 'rainbow' fabrics. I bought a set of 16 fat eighths at the recent Perth quilt fair (staggered on each other below). These are hand dyed and just so yummy. They way the colours meld into each other is divine.

I cut a 1.5" strip from each piece of fabric.

Then, using a 1/4" seam join the strips together, ironing each seam allowance straight after you sew the seam. You get more precise creases doing them as you go along. Dont be tempted to sew all the strips together and then iron the seams at the end!

Now join your rainbow of strips into a tube.
and slice into 1.5" 'squid rings' Unpick one of the seams in each squid ring to make a vertical rainbow strip. Unpicking a different seam in each squid ring allows you to alter which rainbow colour takes top position in the vertical strip. then when you sew the vertical strips together you get this wonderful effect. Each square is 1" so this block is 17" x 13"



And yes I know there is a mistake! DOH!! (3rd last vertical row jumps two positions up instead of one... you notice it most when you look at the bright yellow colour). I will have to fix that up later when I make some more 'squid rings'. I have a few weeks to muse on where to take this bargello design. I think I might try and make it about 30 or 40" square, then add a black border, quilt and hang it on a wall. But it may very well end up as a small lap quilt by adding a series of wide borders.