OK, so this isn’t so much a tutorial as an idea, but if you have never made a quilt before this is a really good, groovy looking and easy place to start, in which you pretty much can’t go wrong with colour! Let me introduce to you, the

“Make a Quilt With a Friend” Tutorial
or  Beginners Luck

by Sarah Fielke

I have decided to make a quilt with a special friend who lives interstate and I never get to see. We always lament out lack of contact, and so we decided that making a few blocks a month and posting them to each other would be a great way of making sure we keep in contact!

We are using linen as a base as it is so neutral and will enable us both to use fabrics from our stashes and scraps to make the blocks each month, and not create too much havoc in the finished quilt.

There are a lot of ways this quilt could be put together in the end, when we have made all the blocks (how many is all? I don’t know yet!) I will post about different ways of setting them.

We will exchange two blocks a month (they are deliberately very easy blocks so that if someone is short on time there is no drag to get them done) until we think we have “enough”, and then we will both have a set of blocks made by the other person to make into a quilt, which makes for a lovely memento of a friendship.

Here are the VERY easy instructions for making the 16 patch blocks. If you have never made a quilt before, making these blocks is very easy and quick. You do not need to make them to the size I have used, any size will work so long as they are all the same! Have fun….

You will need:
Linen or similar for a neutral background
Scraps of lots of different brightly coloured fabrics for the squares
Rotary cutter, ruler and mat
Sewing machine

Step 1. Cut 2 1/2” strips from the linen fabric.



Step 2. Cut the 2 1/2” strips into 2 1/2” squares.



Step 3. Pick out a pile of brightly coloured fabrics or scraps from your stash. Cut the fabrics into 2 1/2” squares. You will need 8 linen squares and 8 scrap squares for each 16 1/2” block.





Step 4. Lay the fabric out and arrange them so that they are pleasing to your eye. I have decided to lay my blocks out loosely by colour. Here is a pink and a blue block.





Step 5. Sew the fabrics into pairs, Each pair will have one linen square and one coloured square. You can chain piece (feed all the squares through one after another without cutting the thread in between) to make this process quicker.





Step 6.Sew the pairs into a four patch, taking care to match the points at the centre of the block.



Step 7. Sew the four patches together into pairs.



Step 8. Sew the strips of four patches together to create a 16 patch. Easy!





Now I know that for a lot of you this is a really easy tutorial in terms of sewing – but it’s a great way to make something with another crafter you care about with creating too much stress, but still managing to think about and contact each other regularly. Have a go!

If you have a technique you would like to share with Sewn readers, email your tutorial idea to sarah@sewn.net.au