Rainbow connection quilt block swap for beginners

Last year, well this year but it's almost up, I did not do any bigger swaps.  That is, we had no longer lasting than the every other month, nothing needing a sign-up or much in the way of planning.  Well this year, we will have two.  The first, this one, is on the easy side. & so, here are the rules:

FIRST- pick a color red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple.  Every participant MUST sign up for their color in the Quilt Block Swap group on Facebook.  I'm sorry but I have wracked my brains & cannot think of any other way to keep it straight.  After the first round of ROYGBP has been claimed, I will open up another set & once that one is filled, etc..  You can sign up for as many colors as you like BUT only one in each set & you cannot sign-up for the same color more than once.  Every time one set of six has been filled I will open a new set & I will do this right up until Thanksgiving, so there will be as many chances as there are people who want to swap, I hope.  Also, there will be a rolling deadline, approximately 2-3 months after a set opens for sign up, through-out all of 2013 & into 2014.  As each new set is opened the deadline will be posted; the deadline for the first set is the last Saturday in March, March 30, 2013.

SECOND- choose a block, any block.  The final block should be 12.5" unfinished but there is nothing wrong with choosing a 10" block & then adding a border to bring it up to 12.5".  

THIRD- get your fabrics together.  You will need at least one fabric in your color choice.  You can of course use more than one fabric, so long as the color you chose & only the color you chose (with maybe, just maybe a bit of black &/or white but NO OTHER COLOR) is in the fabric.  The easiest thing to do is to limit yourself to read-as-solid, but a tone-on-tone pattern is also perfectly acceptable.  You will also need a background fabric; please limit yourself to white (muslin is fine) or a white-on-white print.  This is the same fabric you would use to "border up" if you make a smaller block & need to bring it to 12.5".  You can also use black or a black-on-black print if your block requires something to make it pop, but black should be used very sparingly if at all.

FOURTH- make six blocks.  Keep one for yourself & send the other five in with a stamped, addressed return envelope.  Once ALL the colors from your set have arrived, you will get back one each of the other five colors (yes, I know the traditional spectrum is actually seven colors, but I decided to merge indigo & violet into a single purple).

& that is it.  Naturally, when choosing & working on your block, you should make the blocks you wish to receive, quality-wise.  This swap is open to (designed for, even) beginners who want to challenge themselves, so please reach beyond the usual 4- or 9-patch.

I have included a picture (the traditional rolling stone block) as an example of what you could make.  In this case, the color is obviously BLUE.  The color fabric has several shades of blue & the slightest bit of black but no other colors & the background is a white-on-white pattern. This particular pattern block is already 12.5" unfinished so it would not need any additional background to bring it to size.  As it happens, this block is NOT part of this swap, so don't go looking for it in the blocks you get back; this is just an example of the kind of thing you could make (& honestly, as it is a pattern any advanced beginner should be able to tackle, you could use it as a guide to the kind of pattern you could make).

If you think this swap might interest you, please go to Facebook, find the Quilt Block Swap group & ask to join