Fold and Sew Quilts

I've come up with a quick and easy quilt making technique, which I call fold and sew. I was given a gift of 5- and 10-inch precut fabrics, and I wanted to make something really fast and simple. I had just finished up with a project that had lots of blocks. There was a lot of rotary cutting, a lot of piecing in that quilt. And this time I just wanted quick and fast. I thought I was just gonna take these precuts and sew them together in rows, but that looked a little bit boring. So I happened to lay one of the five-inch blocks on top of a 10-inch block. And I liked that square in a square look, but traditionally I would have had to have come in and rotary cut in order to sew them back together. So as I was looking at this block, I thought, well, what would happen if I just folded the sides of the 10-inch block over, had them meet in the middle, so that the raw edges of the five-inch blocks were enclosed in a seam? So that's what I did. You can see, I folded these two sides over, ironed 'em, and then I made a 1/4-inch seam here and a 1/4-inch seam over here. And when you fold them back out again, you see that your raw edges on these sides are enclosed in a seam. There's still two more raw edges that have to be enclosed. So you take the other two sides of the 10-inch block. You fold them together into the center. Again, you iron and then you sew a little 1/4-inch seam on these two sides. And when you fold it open again, you've got your square in a square block. This is the quilt that I made using this technique. I also used 2 1/2-inch sashing, which is also a precut. They're called jelly rolls, and they come already precut so you don't have to do that. Then I decided, what would happen if I put that five-inch square in different areas of the 10-inch square? So I put one block in the corner. I did the same thing. I folded over so that that raw edge of the five-inch square would be enclosed, ironed and then fold the seam. Then you open that up. There'll be one more raw edge that needs to be enclosed, so you fold over again, sew that 1/4-inch seam, so that both edges of that five-inch block are enclosed, and there's no raw edges showing. This is the quilt that I made using those blocks. And when you put them together and, especially, put them together with more of that precut sashing, it gives kind of a window pane look to your quilt. You can also, if you want, put those five-inch blocks in opposite corners, and again, do your folding, ironing and sewing. Again, you're folding over, ironing and sewing. Just remember that this is quick and easy. That was what I wanted when I started out. And this is what you get. It's a four-square look. Then I decided to take that little five-inch square, fold it in half on the diagonal so that I would have triangles. I put two of those triangles on opposite corners. And in this case, there are no raw edges of that five-inch square coming inside the 10-inch square, so you don't have to fold and sew at this point. You just want to make a basting stitch along the outside of these triangles so that they stay with the block when you're putting them into a quilt. And if you put four of them together, or as many as you want together, you come up with something like this. And you can see I've done the basting stitches along here. They will open up a little bit. If you don't like that, you can always make a little seam right here to hold them down. If you're making a children's quilt, which these are great for because they're so fast to do, kids like to have little pockets to put things in, and that would be ideal for that kind of a quilt. Or you can close those when you're doing your quilting after the blocks are all put together into a quilt. I also went ahead and put a triangle in every corner of the 10-inch square, and you come up with something that looks like this. And here you can see where I went ahead and sewed those edges, those bias edges, so that they wouldn't flip over, flip open. So that's something you can do if that bothers you. These triangles that you've done that folded, they leave you a bias edge here on this folded side, and that's something else you can do. You can fold that biased edge back and then stitch along right there, and that gives you a curved look to your blocks, something like this. So you could make a whole quilt doing it like that, and that also keeps those little corners from flipping open. You don't have to put your five-inch triangles in the middle of your, on the outside. You can also put them in the middle of your block, which is what I've done here. But when we do that, we have those raw edges landing in the inside of that 10-inch square again, so you have to do your folding and sewing. And the way the triangles are positioned on this block, you're going to be folding that 10-inch block on the diagonal, ironing and then making your seam like this to encase those raw edges. And then, you come and you do that again on the other side, so that the other raw edges are enclosed, and you come up with a block like this. Those five-inch squares can also be put oriented in this way, in this position. And in that case, you would fold your 10-inch square over this way to enclose those raw seams and then you'd fold it open, and there's two more raw seams showing. You would fold over, you would stitch a 1/4-inch seam to enclose those, and you would come up with this block here. So you can see how putting the five-inch folded triangles in different positions in your block come up with different looks to your block. And I also have three little blocks that I've positioned some five-inch triangles on, and you'll see just what variety you can get by doing this, using this technique. I've made a couple quilts where I have gone ahead and added the different types of those blocks into one quilt. This is your square in the square. This is your four-square. This is your, the other square that I just demonstrated. This is another one where you take that five-inch square and you fold it in half diagonally. So that's how that quilt, how that block was made. And I used a smaller sashing in this quilt instead of the 2 1/2-inch sashings. Here's another quilt that also demonstrates putting the different types of blocks together to give you a different look in your quilt. As I mentioned, you could go ahead and take those five-inch squares and fold them in half diagonally twice. Go ahead and put those around the outside of your block. The raw edges are, both are, there are no raw edges on the inside of the block, so all you have to do is make a little basting stitch to have these stay in place. And if you put four of those together, you come up with a little pinwheel in the center, and these make great baby quilts. Babies like to have tactical things, so these little five-inch squares poking up actually add to the quilt. It gives you a little extra dimension. This is, as I said, a fast and easy way to make a quilt. They make great children's quilts, make great baby quilts, charity quilts, because it doesn't take you long to do, lap quilts. It's also a great way to teach your kids to quilt without having to worry about them cutting themselves with the rotary cutter. Every time that I teach this class, my students come up with different block ideas, and it's my hope that this holds true for you, also, when you try this quick and easy, fold and sew quilt making technique.