Tips & Tricks: GO! Rainbow Road Throw Quilt

Hi, quilters! It’s Jen from Dizzy Quilter, here to share my latest AccuQuilt project.

All About Colors

Do you love it when you can take a die that uses four colors and make a pattern using 11? I do! I’m a huge fan of rainbow quilts - I think it comes from being a child of the 70’s. I’ve been making rainbow quilts forever. You won’t get an easy answer when you ask me which color is my favorite - I love them all! 

This project started with the brand new GO! Road to Fortune-9" Finished Die. This Block on Board (BOB) Die is a special AccuQuilt die that contains all the shapes you need for a complicated block on one board. Whenever I see a new die release, I immediately get to work in my Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8) Quilt Design Software. I pull up the block and start playing with colors. This time around, I did not have to do much work because there was already a rainbow pattern for this die, the GO! Rainbow Road Throw Quilt. 

I adore this pattern and I was so happy that I was able to design it for AccuQuilt! I made a few changes to the colors of some of the inner shapes of the Road to Fortune block for this tutorial. Be prepared for pieces that are on the small side since each block finishes to 9", so the quilt is 45” x 45" finished.

PRO TIP: Use the AccuQuilt system's screenprinted letters on the die board to keep everything organized and go one step at a time to easily create this pattern.

Supplies Needed

• GO! Road to Fortune-9" Finished Die
• GO! Strip Cutter-2 1/2" (2" Finished) Die OR GO! Strip Cutter-2 1/2" (2" Finished) 3 Strips Die
• GO! Fabric Cutter
• Sewing machine
• Iron
• Thread
• Pins
• Spray starch

Tips From the Pattern Designer Herself

A Note on Fabric Selection

The fabrics I used in this project are Peppered Cottons, and were generously provided by Studio E Fabrics. Peppered Cottons are my favorite fabrics to play with. They are soft and make quilts with the most wonderful drape. The downside is that they can be a little tricky to work with. I encourage them to cooperate with me by using Faultless Lux Finish Fabric Spray.

I used black, white, and a rainbow assortment of nine colors. When choosing your colors, you could do a rainbow like I did, or you can do a nine-step gradient of a single color. It would probably be a challenge to shop that way unless you are in a local quilt shop, though.

My favorite quilt shop is Gotham Quilts, and I shop online with them a lot. You can go to their website, select “fabric,” then choose a color. Then, scroll through and choose colors you like. I think this pattern will be most successful with solids or tone-on-tones because the pieces are small. A larger scale print would take away from the graphic impact of the design. 

Be sure to refer to the pattern for fabric amounts. 

Cutting & Assembly Tips

When cutting your pieces, you may notice that there are large pieces of scrap fabric left over. I was often able to open up my fan-folded pieces and cut other pieces from the sections in the middle. Whether I do this or not largely depends on my time availability versus the expense of my fabric. I can use every bit of fabric wisely, or I can use all of my time wisely. For this project, I often used time to save fabric, mostly because I have an emotional attachment to Peppered Cottons. I can’t stand the idea of them going to waste, and my waste fabric is used to stuff floor cushions, not trash. The pattern instructions are written to use time efficiently. 

Above, you can see how I opened up the fabric after cutting Shapes C and D, and found pieces I could re-cut into Shape F. This may or may not work for you, depending on how accurately you fold your fabrics, but I like to save fabric when I can. 

I often make a test block when I first use a die. In this case, I treated my first corner block as the test. I cut out enough pieces only for this block, not the entire quilt. I really need to know that I can make the quilt before I cut everything up. In this case, I discovered that it is really easy to confuse shapes C and D. Make sure you label them and clip them together to keep them organized (see below). 

I lay out all of my pieces before assembling the block. For the Road to Fortune block, there are four identical quadrants, so I was able to stack everything up into four sets (pictured below). 

I assembled all the pieces of each wedge together, attached the wedges, quarters, and then the halves. I pressed it all one last time and admired the block. I spray starch each seam as I press it. I have yet to find the “too much starch” volume. I am pretty sure the people who make Faultless love me!

Once I had the first block correctly assembled, I cut out the rest of the quilt. As I cut, I clipped the color groups together, making sure that I kept everything organized. When possible, I cut out an extra piece or two as insurance. Then, I packed it all up in many zipper bags to keep it together to finish after a two week trip I took to Florida.

PRO TIP: Staying organized is one way to stay on top of quilting projects. This lets you easily take a break from whatever you are working on and get back to it when you can. 

I put most of it together there with this lovely view and quilting pal (pictured below). You can see the groups of pieces stacked up on the window sill. 

I find it helpful to keep my test block in view of my sewing machine, along with piecing instructions and a quilt sketch (pictured below), particularly with a block like this one, where it would be easy to put colors in the wrong place.

It was so much fun watching it come together, one set of colors at a time. I used a combination of the dining table and the floor to lay out the blocks. 

I got this far (see above) and then injured my elbow badly enough that I was not able to sew for several days. So, this quilt was cut at home in New Jersey, flew to Florida where it was pieced together about halfway, then finished in New Jersey. 

Here it is, all together. 

Here is a close-up shot of it getting ready to be bound. I adore the secondary pattern formed by the black and white corner pieces. 

Thanks for following along! If you make this pattern, tag @jenstrauser and @AccuQuilt and use the hashtag #AccuQuiltBuilt on social media! I love seeing when people use my inspirations.