Don’t you just love it when an idea clicks for you and you just have to jump right in?

Y’all know I love a good rainbow quilt! Yet somehow when I saw all the beautiful day-glow colours in my friend Libs Elliott‘s Phosphor collection, it didn’t occur to me that they would actually make a really awesome rainbow, until she posted a picture of them all lined up in rainbow order.

I immediately ran over to mock up this baby Vortex quilt and then begged for some fat quarters to make a sample. It was June. It was Pride month. It was the awesome neon quilt that the world needed in that moment!

As soon as I got my hands on the fabric, I got to work cutting strips! I had the blocks all pieced in no time, and managed to finish the quilt top before the end of June.

It was hard to choose a thread colour for the quilting, with so many bright colours in the quilt top! Based on the Alison Glass print I chose for the back, I narrowed it down to pink or green I ended up going with a bright pink called Tango. I didn’t want the Citron to overpower the dark grey fussy cut centres (and highlight every tiny flaw). (You can follow along as I quilt a block!)

There are so many things to love about strip quilts, but one of the best is that the leftovers are a great shortcut to binding. I stitched together the leftover bits into a scrappy rainbow binding.

Foolishly, I stitched the binding down by hand (I hate finishing binding by hand! I don’t know why I thought it would be fast, just because it’s a small quilt!)

Want to make your own Vortex quilt? Grab a copy of the pattern!