Actually there were not any rectangles. It is just squares. I used 3" squares & you have 16 x 3" squares to make one block. It is just an illusion that the blocks are overlapping. That is what I thought was so much fun. The center blocks are made with 4 x 3" squares using all the same color. The blocks around the center blocks are all 3" squares. I arranged the 16 x 3" (or whatever you choose) blocks in rows & sewed the 4 rows together to make one block. When you sew them together it gives the impression that the center block is overlapping 4 other blocks. There are 8 blocks across the top of the quilt & each of the 8 blocks has 16 x 3" blocks. Hope that helps?