Four Patch Charm Quilt with Tutorial

Free PDF Pattern is now available for download.  Click here! 

I have had this quilt in the works for a  few months and finally got to quilt it this week.  When I loaded it on my machine I was planning on doing a panto but it kept nagging at me that it deserved some custom work so I gave in!  :)    Large pebbles and swirls it was!     I had made the blocks at a guild UFO day and had a few guild members help me decide on the finally layout as there are so many options when playing with HST style blocks. I really like how the blocks are worked into the border and glad my friends suggested it!  :)

 I used  soft yellow So Fine thread for the background quilting and a light brown Lava thread on the dark batiks.   Batting is Quilter’s Dream Blend.

I used a Stonehenge extra wide backing.

I thought I would share how I made the blocks as I didn’t use a pattern but used a technique that I saw on a Missouri Quilt Company YouTube video that you can see here on how to make quick HST blocks. But instead of using just two fabrics from a charm pack I resized it and replaced one of the fabrics with a  Four Patch made with 5” charm squares and that turns out to be 9 1/2” square.

Once I had the four patch sewn I cut a 9 1/2” square of my background fabric and layered them right sides together and sewed a 1/4” seam around the outside perimeter.

Then I cut the block diagonally twice.

Then press open the four sections ( to the dark side) and end up with four HST blocks. Trim blocks, if needed, to 6 1/4" square.

Now the only down side to these blocks are they are all bias edges so you have to be very careful when sewing the blocks together that you don’t stretch them out of shape!  When adding the border cut 6 1/4" strips WOF of the background and piece in the two corner blocks that extend the design into the border. DO NOT piece white and white HST in the border as that would put bias edges on the outside edge.  I have had a few readers do this and that makes for a very unstable outside edge.  So if you have a few charm packs sitting around and want make a fast and easy quilt why not give this a try!  I used 3 charm packs and my quilt finished 63 3/4"x 69 1/2", that includes the 6 1/4" border.  I used about 3m of background/border/binding fabric for this size.