Friday, January 15, 2010

Cutting Diagram for Simple Squares Quilt

block A instructions

Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about the quiltalong and decided I should share the cutting diagram I made when I was figuring out yardage requirements for this quilt. There might be another way to do it that will work, but this cutting laying is how I figured out that you can make the larger quilt with 12 fat quarters. Let's see if I can figure out how to explain this...

If you think about the blocks, there are 2 fabrics in block A (the large square and the outer square) and 3 fabrics in block B (the innermost small square, the outer square, and the square in the middle).

With the cutting diagram above, you will be able to use each fabric one time for each of these 5 different fabric placements. Does that make sense? I don't know if it will work though if you try to use one fabric for two of the large block A squares, or, say three of larger outer squares. One way you can get around this is to use more fabric than I suggested--I counted and I actually used 17 fat quarters for my Figgy Pudding quilt. Part of the reason I needed more fabric for that quilt was that I used directional prints and needed to cut strips for my blocks in different directions. So if you are using a directional print, keep in mind that you will need extra yardage.

There have been a couple questions about the timeline here... go right ahead and start making your blocks. I will make a blog post explaining the sashing in a week or so when I get to that point in my quilt. I have seen other quiltalongs where the directions for different blocks are posted once a week or a few days apart, but I have started and then procrastinated this quiltalong enough times that the block instructions are all ready for you to get started. So, go ahead and start making your quilt blocks when you're ready!

Here are the other links for the quiltalong, just in case you need them:

Thanks for joining in!

3 comments:

Dielle said...

Great diagram! Because I have a jelly roll, and 6 fat quarters, I'm going to do it a bit different, repeating the big inner squares twice each. But then there are 10 different fabrics in the jelly roll. So I'll have a little less diversity. But I think it'll be ok, don't you?

Vicki said...

yes, I'm sure that will be fine :). I'm thinking about trying it really scrappy, too. With my vintage sheet fat quarters.

Anonymous said...

Great diagram Vicki! I am looking forward to seeing all the cute quilts everyone comes up with. I finished my skirt today and am very happy with how it turned out;) Thank you for the encouragement to sew something easy for myself!