Other posts on this project: Rainbow Quilt Pt. 1.

I’ve finished piecing together the 4 rows for this quilt. Now I need to piece together the sashing strips to go between the rows and all around the quilt.

The rows came together really quickly, probably less than an hour to sew and iron. It took more time to cut out the fabric, so I’m hoping that I finish the entire top in the next few days. Then I move on to the terrifying part where I try to machine quilt this myself.

My only complaint about Kathy Doughty’s pattern is probably more a complaint about how fabric is cut. Her quilt blocks are 18″ square, and she says it’s all fat quarters. I know fat quarters are 18″ by 22″, but I had very few that I used for this quilt that were actually that size or had an 18″ edge that was ready to go. Some were a little less than 18″, and some were cut unevenly so that by the time I got the pattern evened out I’d cut off less than 18″. And I know I’m also not the neatest cutter in the world. When I cut out my squares I made them 17″ square and then added an extra inch of width onto all the sashing pieces I cut out. I hoped that would make up for it, but between my sometimes uneven sewing and a couple of wonky cuts I made I’ll be doing a lot of squaring up with these rows. I think by the time I get each row to a nice even shape the squares will be more like 16.5″ all around, not including the seams where the sashing is sewn on. So overall, this will probably turn out to be a little less than the 64.5″ by 85″ measurements the pattern gives. I’m hoping not too much smaller, and I’m still working out whether to recut some border sashing to level it out. We’ll see. But so far I think it looks great.