The Boston Modern Quilt Guild is making charity quilts this year and members have been asked to donate blocks made with fabrics that are from the same color family.  The quilts will then be made with a rainbow of the different color grouped blocks.

I came up with a strategy for my blocks which involved sorting all of my fabric scraps by color and then selecting strips from each pile and sewing them together.

After sorting the strips I trimmed them so they were all about the same length and so that each strip was a uniform width, but the strips are various widths!

Then I sewed them together.

For the blocks that I decided to make I made sure that the pieced strips panel was 38″ long and about 15″ wide. This is enough to make several blocks. You do need a 38″ long strip for the log cabin block featured in this article.

Trim the uneven edge and don’t forget to save your scraps that are too small to sew with.  These will be the stuffing for a pillow!

 

I cut my pieced strips 3 1/2″ wide and some are 2″ wide.

One of the block designs is a log cabin block.  This block uses one of the 3 1/2″ wide strips with other fabric scraps.  The center is a 3 1/2″ square bordered with 2″ strips.

Sew the strips and then trim them to the correct size.  Use a square ruler to make sure your cuts are correct.  The center block will be 6 1/2″ square.

Then continue adding the 3 1/2″ wide pieced strips.  Sew then trim to the correct size as you go.  Once the block was larger than 6 1/2″ I got out my 12 1/2″ ruler to trim the block.

The block will be 12 1/2″ square when completed.  These are two of the blocks:

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Here are some made with purple and green strips.

Of course I got carried away and will be making a lot of these blocks, so I will make my own quilt with these blocks.   Usually I would use all different colors, but I really love the idea of using strips that are in the same color group. The finished blocks are sublimely wonderful.