Beginner Quilting Session 6: Beginner Blocks to Try

Now you know how to cut your fabric, you know how to piece your fabric, and you know how to press it. So let's put all that knowledge to some good use and we're actually going to make some beginner blocks. Now, all the patterns for these blocks as well as precise measurements and everything you'll need will be provided as downloadable content with this class. So you can either follow along with me right now or you can print those off and practice and master them at any time. So the first block we're going to make is what's called a nine patch.

And it's sounds exactly like what it is in that it is nine squares of fabric. Now this might actually start to look a little bit repetitive because we had squares that we pieced together when we were practicing piecing. We had squares in three strips like this that we use to make sure we had accurate, consistent seam allowances. So everything that you use when you're practicing and learning how to put together quilts can be incorporated into actually making your blocks. So again, we're going to start out with some squares, and we're going to need two different colors, and you can see we're just going to lay them out alternating in colors.

And then we'll alternate the colors in the rows, just like this. Now these nine patches can be made out of squares of any size. So we can take our ruler right now, we look and we see we have two and a half inch squares. That's going to create this size of block. I can make a nine patch with three inch squares with six inch squares.

So it just depends on how big I want my finished block to be. So, as you can see, what we would do is we take and start putting our pieces together. So I like to start my blocks in the upper corner and then work my way down. So I'm going to grab these two pieces here, put them right sides together, and I'm going to stitch. Okay, get everything aligned up.

Again I have my quarter inch foot on, not doing my back stitching before or after. Go ahead and stitch and I'm done. Take that off. And if it helps you to, as soon as you have stitched pieces to put them back where you got them to see what comes next, that's something you can do. So you can see, I would then stitch this one to here and I would continue until I have three strips like this sewn together.

So now I have my three strips and now it's time to actually turn those into blocks. So again, this is like what we did when we were learning how to lock our seams together. So we would line them up. We can use our fingers to feel, make sure that our seams are nice, locked in place. Then we can take it over and we can stitch.

Again I know my first one is nice and locked in place. I'm going to stitch up to it. I'm going to stop. I'm going to line lineup my next one, make sure that it is nice and lined up. I can feel that it's a little bit off, so I'll just pull on the fabric a little more.

There we go. It's nice and lined up. Stitched to that seam, make sure my edges are lined up and finish off that stitch. I can take it off, again I can lay it right back down where I got it from to see what comes next. And in that case, I only have one strip remaining.

So I know that that then needs to be stitched onto here. And then I end up with my finished block. As you see, these are really easy blocks to put together. And once you start putting them all together, the nine patch can actually disappear, because when you have nine patches all next to each other, it doesn't look like just nine pieces anymore. So you can really play with how you want your design to look.

So in this case, I've just made a bunch, a bunch of these and you can lay them out. So I have them either here where I have the alternating color, staying continuous. I could put them like this, where I have maybe some of those colors right next to each other. You can make them any way you want, and you can also make them to where if you didn't want that nine patch look to disappear, you can intersperse some squares that help break up all of the nine patches. So you can make a bunch of these really quickly, put them all together and make some of quilted wall hanging.

You can go and make a big quilt but it's just a really easy block to put together. And you can add these accent squares in there if you'd like to do that as well. So again, this is called a nine patch and it's just a really easy beginner block to start with. It goes together pretty quick and it allows you to practice cutting accurately, piecing accurately and locking those seams. Another beginner block we're going to try is what's called a rail fence.

Now this one is also another very easy block to put together. One more piece over here. And this is what it looks like. It is simply three strips of fabric that we're going to sew together. You might think, well, that's just really simple.

That's really easy. Why do we need to learn how to make a block like this? What's cool about this block is it actually is in how you put all of these blocks together that creates your rail fence look. So again, I have my pieces that I would need, I like to lay them out. Whether I have maybe a picture of the block I'm creating, whether I have the pattern, I like to keep that so I can reference it to see how I'm supposed to line everything up.

That way I don't accidentally maybe have my colors out of order or something like that. So I'd get everything nice and lined up. Again I would start at the top. I would put these together and then I could sew them. Then I would take it back and place it right where I got it, add the next piece, and sew that.

So this one goes together really easy. I think you can see how you would piece those strips together. And then you can actually start laying out your rail fence. So I have a bunch of these here so you can see how this is going to go together. Like so.

You alternate the way they go. So I'm gonna put another row of them here. Okay. Then yet another row here, right, like so. And you can see, that's getting a little close to the edge you can see how I'm going to get this little step that's coming down.

And that's going to create the look I have here in my quilt. So I have, again, a bunch of these. I can put some more up here on top and these go together so quick and easy because they are just strips of fabric. Like so, and then I can put them all together and I have this really cool design. So again, this is called the rail fence and you can see it has this like stair-step pattern.

Now, maybe you like the rail fence block but you don't necessarily like this stair-step pattern. You can arrange your blocks any way you want. So maybe I want a row where I have my dark orange on the right then on the bottom, then maybe on the left, I can put the next ones down here on the top and I can reign this any way I want. So once you learn how to construct the basic blocks, then you can have fun and play around and see how you want to put them all together in your quilt. So again, this one is a rail fence.

And again, just like with the nine patch, you can make the size of your strips, any size you want. So I have some fairly small rectangles that I was putting together, but you could make them a little bit larger if you wanted your finished blocks to be a little larger. The next one we're going to look at is what's called a pinwheel. Now this one looks maybe a little more complicated because we have some triangles involved for the first time. But as far as when we're cutting out our fabric, it's still really easy, because we're just cutting out squares.

This is one of the times when we're actually going to be able to utilize one of those specialty rulers that I showed you earlier. So to make our pinwheel, we're going to start again with some squares. So I have two squares here. I'm going to line them up with right sides together. And then I'm going to stitch down the middle here to create my triangle.

Now I need to be able to stitch and then still cut these two apart. So I need to have a line that goes down the center. And then I need to have a quarter inch on either side of that so I know where I'm stitching, and that's where this handy little ruler comes in place. I can line my line up. I have the corners of my squares.

You can see that's right on that line. And I'm going to take one of my marking pencils. In this case, it doesn't necessarily have to be a removable marking pencil because this is the backside of your fabric but I don't want like a Sharpie or something that's going to soak through my fabric. So I would take, and I would mark on this side and then I'm a mark on the other side. Now, what I like to do is I like to actually just switch my hands.

I'm going to hold my ruler with my other hand and then use my left hand to make the mark. Now, if you're not comfortable using both your hands to make your marks like that, you can take it, flip it around reline up your ruler and make your other mark. Whatever you need to do to where you have those two lines. Those are now our stitching lines. So I'm going to take this over to the machine and I'm gonna stitch directly on those two lines that I just drew.

Okay. It doesn't really matter which one you start with. Just pick one. And stitch all the way down. Now, what I like to do here is again, it's not really chain piecing, but I'm saving some time in that I'm going to go ahead and lift my needle, lift my presser foot and just flip this around.

Don't worry about cutting my thread, doing anything, and I can go right into lining up and stitching right along that next line. Right, like so. I'm done, I can take it off. Okay. Now going to need to get my cutting surface out, right now I have my pressing side up.

So let me get my cutting side because what I'm gonna do is now cut our square into two triangles. So now this is called a half square triangle and that's because we are using half of our square to create our triangle. So you can use a ruler or you can just freehand. All we're doing is cutting in between those two lines we just stitched. Then what we can do is open them out.

I'll just finger press real quick. You can see we have our triangle sections of our piece, just like that. And all I had to do was cut squares to begin with, stitch down the center like that, cut it, and then I have my half square triangles. So I have a couple here that I've already pieced or already pressed. And you can see that now all I have to do is align them to where one of each sides of those colors are coming to the center.

And what I mean by that is I wouldn't want the triangle like this, because I have only the dark green coming to the center. Whereas I want both the dark green and the variegated green all coming to the center, just like this. And this is how I create my pinwheel. So again, I'm going to lay out my pieces how I would want them assembled before I stitch them. So I'll just talk you through how you're going to assemble this.

For this part, we would take, we would align these up right size together and stitch along the side and then do the same thing down here. And now we have essentially our two rows of fabric that we would then stitch together right along here. So once you get all your pieces, a lot of the blocks really start coming together very similarly. So I have quite a few of the little pinwheel blocks already made, and you can see how you can take and lay a bunch of things these ones out and make these into a really cute quilt or while hanging, or you can maybe make just four of them like that, piece those all together, and maybe you want to quilt like a place mat or something. So pretty quickly you can make maybe a gift set of placements or something that you want to give to somebody.

So a fun way to make a block that looks a little bit more complicated but really wasn't that hard to put together. We have one last block that we're going to look at, and this incorporates everything we've learned so far. So it incorporates our half square triangles, which is these right here. And it incorporates our nine patch, because it's the nine, the three rows of three coming together. So you can see we would start with our squares of two different colors, put those together, and we do our stitching, just like we did with the pinwheel to create that half square triangle.

And then we lay everything out and stitch it all together. And this is called a friendship star block. So a fun thing to do with these blocks is to make a couple of variations of them. So what I've done is I have the star and the dark brown and the print is the background. And then the star as the print and the dark brown is the background.

Then when you layer and line all of these up, you can have this nice look like this where everything doesn't quite match perfectly, but you can just play around with how you want everything lined up. So again, this is called the friendship star block. Now the nine patch, the rail fence or pin wheel and this friendship star block, all the pattern pieces all the measurements, all everything you're going to need in order to create this will be provided with this class. So don't get intimidated if maybe you didn't pick up on exactly how everything went together the first time. Just go through and really look at the block and think about how it all goes together.

You can see that you have the nine pieces and how they're going to fit together. Just like we've practiced with piecing. And then these half square triangles really aren't that intimidating at all. It is just a square and we've stitched diagonally down and then cut it in half. So it's simple blocks that you can practice.

And definitely, maybe you want to make a little sampler of all the things that you've learned and put all four blocks together in a quilt. It's definitely something that you can play around with. And I really hope you'll give all these blocks of try.