The first quilt I ever made was a simple patchwork quilt from 4 inch squares. Equally as simple is the traditional nine-patch block.
SUPPLY LIST
PINS
SAFETY PINS
FABRIC
SCISSORS
*ROTARY CUTTER, CUTTING MAT & RULER
THREAD
SEWING MACHINE
HAND-QUILTING THREAD
*HAND-QUILTING NEEDLE
HERA MARKER, OR MECHANICAL PENCIL OR WATER-SOLUBLE FABRIC MARKER
QUILT BATTING
IRON & IRONING BOARD
MASKING TAPE
*(OPTIONAL SUPPLIES)
The first step is to select fabric. If this is your first quilt I would suggest making a doll or baby size quilt. Smaller quilts are easier to wrangle and less of a commitment. To make a small quilt you’ll need only a couple yards of fabric. To make the nine-patch doll size quilt above, I used naturally dyed fabrics from my scrap bin. This block is a great for using up scraps if you have them. For my palette I chose black for the center of every block, varying shades of blues and purples and natural undyed cotton.
Larger squares are a little easier to work with when you’re first learning. If you’re making a doll size quilt then 2” squares would be a good size, and if you’re making a baby size quilt maybe cut your squares to 3”. I had really small scraps I was trying to use up so I cut my squares to 1.5”. The squares shown in the photo above are from another nine-patch quilt I made which was much bigger. For a small quilt you won’t need this many squares. Begin by cutting a dozen squares of each color and then cut more as you need them so you don’t end up with a ton of leftover squares.
If you want to do the same nine-patch layout that I did then you’ll need some neutral background fabric as well, which I’ll refer to as “spacers” going forward. You’ll determine the size of your spacer blocks once you’ve sewn up your nine-patch blocks so don’t cut them just yet.
Be precise when cutting the nine-patch squares. Use a rotary cutter and mat if you have them. There are many tutorials on YouTube which explain how to cut squares with a rotary cutter so I won’t cover that here. If you don’t have a rotary cutter and mat it’s fine to cut the squares with scissors.
The nine-patch block is literally 9 squares sewn together, hence its name. To begin, choose 9 squares and lay them out as shown.
Pin the squares in the top row together, matching each square, corner to corner, with the right sides of the fabric facing each. Use a 1/4” seam allowance to sew them together. Be as accurate as possible with your 1/4” seam allowance. Remove the pins as you approach them rather than sewing over them to avoid breaking your needle. Repeat for the middle and bottom rows.
Take the three rows over to the iron and press the seams open. Pressing seams open is a bit controversial in the quilting world but I’ve found that it helps with accuracy and also with matching up seams in the next step.
To finish the block sew the three rows together. Begin by pinning the top row to the middle row with their right sides facing and the seams matched up. Put a pin directly through the center of the open seam:
Then push the pin into the center of the seam of the bottom layer:
Now bring the pin back up through the center of the seam from back to front on both layers. This will ensure your seams are lined up like a pro:
Repeat these steps and sew the bottom row to the middle row. Press the seams open and give the finished block a gentle press.
Great, a nine-patch block!
Once you have a good amount of blocks made, lay them out and play with the design. Continue to make more blocks until you’re satisfied with the size of your quilt. Below is the final design I decided on for my quilt.
Another design option is to eliminate the spacers. This of course requires sewing twice as many nine-patch blocks.
Below I auditioned the blocks on an indigo background to see what indigo spacers would look like and that’s a pretty cool option too!
Once you’ve settled on a design, lay the blocks out just how you want your quilt to look. Keep in mind that your quilt will be quite a bit smaller once you sew the blocks together because of the inches you’ll lose in seam allowances. Move your blocks around until you’re happy with the way the colors flow.
If you’re using neutral spacer blocks between each nine-patch, it’s time to determine their size and cut them. Measure the finished size of one of your nine-patch blocks and cut your spacers to that size. Refer to the first photo of this post to see how I laid my design out if you’re using spacers. To complete the quilt top sew the blocks into horizontal rows:
Finally, match and pin the seams and sew the rows together. Press the seams open as you go. When your quilt top is complete give it a gentle press.
Alright! Now let’s turn this into a quilt. Technically a quilt is a blanket consisting of three layers, the top + batting + back, held together by stitches. The next step in the process is to create a back. To determine the size of your quilt back, measure your quilt top and add about two inches to both the length and the width. The back can be made from a single piece of fabric, or you can get creative and make a pieced back. I selected a piece of indigo dyed fabric which ended up being a bit too short, so I sewed a strip of vintage calico fabric to it.
The next step is to make what’s called a “quilt-sandwich”. With masking- tape, tape the quilt back to a hard surface with the wrong size facing up:
Cut a piece of quilt batting about the same size as your quilt back. Place it on top of the back and smooth out all the wrinkles:
Now with the right side facing up, place the quilt top over the batting and again smooth out the wrinkles.
Mmmmkay, you’re getting there! The next step is to mark quilting guidelines. I like to use a Hera marker because it doesn’t leave any marks that need to be removed in the end, and the lines it makes are visible on both light and dark fabric. If you don’t have a Hera marker you could use a water soluble fabric marker or a chalk pencil. In the photo below from left to right is a Hera marker, a chalk pencil, and a mechanical pencil:
On this small quilt I just eyeballed the lines. On a larger quilt you would want to use a yardstick or something to help you mark straight lines. Or maybe you don’t want to make lines? Quilting freehand is a fabulous option too! In the image below you can see the quilting lines I marked with the Hera marker.
To finish the quilt-sandwich, pin all three layers together with safety pins placed about 4-6 inches apart. Smooth the quilt top out as you place the pins to ensure there aren’t wrinkles.
Remove the tape and there you have a yummy quilt-sandwich all ready to be quilted. I like to hand-quilt my quilts, but you might want to save time and quilt yours by machine. There are many tutorials to be found on YouTube which explain how to machine quilt. I have a hand quilting tutorial on Instagram filed in the “TUTORIAL” story highlight. If you use that tutorial make sure to read through all the questions and answers following the video. If you use this tutorial to make a quilt please post your project on Instagram and use the hashtag #farmandfolktutorial so I can see your quilt and share it to my Instagram stories.
I’ll write another post soon explaining the final step in the process of quilt-making, creating a binding to enclose all the raw edges along the perimeter.
If you have any questions please leave them in the comment section of this post and I’ll do my best to answer them.
