Eight colors, and each one climbs. Blues in one corner, teals beside them, then purples and pinks, greens, reds, oranges and yellows, and finally grays and browns at the foot, every one of them rising and falling in stepped wedges against a quiet neutral ground. From across a room Prismatic Echoes reads as a rainbow. Up close there is not a single triangle in it.
Every shape in the quilt is a rectangle. Each small block is four strips, and each strip is a colored piece joined end to end with a background piece: long color with short background, then a little shorter, then shorter again, so the color steps down across the block like a staircase. Turn the block and it steps up instead. Twelve of those small blocks make one large color block, eight large blocks make the quilt, and the pattern leaves the direction of every step to you, which is where the name comes from. No two quilts made from it need look the same.
The pattern is from Robert Kaufman Fabrics, designed by Karen Lewis in 2015. The colored pieces come from three packs of 10 inch squares, a neutral, a bright and a cool, sorted into eight color stacks before a single seam is sewn.
Pattern details
Pattern name Prismatic Echoes
Brand Robert Kaufman Fabrics
Designer Karen Lewis
Finished size 60 by 80 inches
Size category Throw, a large one, two color blocks across and four down
Difficulty Beginner, our assessment: straight seams and rectangles only, no points to match. The pattern does not print a level
Block Stepped strip block, four rectangles of color against four of background
Technique Rectangles joined end to end into strips, strips joined into blocks, blocks set in rows
Colorway Eight color groups on six neutral backgrounds
Fat quarter friendly No, the backgrounds are cut from yardage
Jelly roll friendly No, every piece is 3 inches wide
Layer cake friendly Yes, the colored pieces are cut from 10 inch squares
Charm pack friendly No, the longest piece needs more than a 5 inch square
The pattern is free to download as a PDF, five pages, direct from Robert Kaufman: Prismatic Echoes quilt pattern. It includes the fabric list, the cutting for the colored and background pieces, the small and large block assembly and the full quilt diagram.
One number to know before you start: the pattern page on the Robert Kaufman site lists the quilt at 60 by 70 inches, but the PDF says 60 by 80, and the arithmetic agrees with the PDF. Each large block finishes at 30 by 20 inches, the quilt is two across and four down, and that makes 80 inches long. Plan the backing and the binding for 80.
Fabrics and palette that serve this pattern
This quilt is sorted, not scattered, and that is the whole trick. The pattern asks you to build eight stacks before you cut: blues, teals, purples with pinks, greens, reds, yellows with oranges, blacks and browns. Each stack becomes one large block, so the rainbow is made at the sorting table, not at the machine. Any collection of 10 inch squares with enough range to fill eight families will do it, and a scrap bin will too if it is deep enough. Our precut fabric is the quickest place to start a stack.
What the steps need is contrast between each colored piece and its background, not between the colored pieces themselves. Within a stack, prints can be busy and close in color and the block still reads, because the stair shape comes from where color meets neutral. The one rule the pattern adds is about value: it tells you to cut a second set from twelve of the darker squares, and that extra weight at the dark end is what keeps each wedge from washing out.
The backgrounds are six light and mid neutrals, cream to gray, with one assigned to each color group and two of them doing double duty. Keep them close in value to each other and clearly lighter than the colors. They come from yardage rather than squares, a third to a half yard each, so they start in fabric by the yard. Three of the twelve small blocks in every group swap the neutral for a colored print as the background, which is the small surprise that stops the big blocks looking like a chart. The original collection is long out of print, so treat the fabric list as a map of values rather than a shopping list.
The work in this quilt is the cutting. Ninety six sets of four rectangles for the color alone, one set for every small block, all 3 inches wide in four lengths, plus the backgrounds to match. Label each stack as the pattern suggests, and cut from stacked layers where you can. If you want every strip to finish at the same width, our guide to cutting fabric accurately covers the ruler checks that make hundreds of identical pieces come out identical, and if your colors are coming from a scrap bin rather than a pack, sorting scraps into families is the same job the pattern opens with.
Pressing is spelled out and worth following. Small block seams go toward the side with the longest background strip, the rows inside each large block alternate left and right so they nest, and the seams between the large blocks are pressed open to keep the top flat where eight blocks meet.
