Kids Can Quilt! – Day 3

Today is probably the most exciting day, we actually get to start sewing! I know, you were probably wondering if we ever actually would. As you can see, there is some prep work required when quilting, but now that you’ve picked your fabrics and have everything cut out, you can focus on just sewing everything together.

For this quilt, we are going to start by making what is called a 9 patch block. It is made by sewing 9 squares together to form a larger square. Then tomorrow, we are going to mix things up a little before sewing together our final quilt layout.

SAFETY NOTE!

We are going to be using the iron today. Irons are VERY HOT. Only use with adult supervision and never leave an iron plugged in. Always turn it off and unplug it when you are done with your project. If you are one of our younger quilters, have an adult do the ironing for you.

Assembly Instructions

Make sure that before you start, you have your adult show you how to use the sewing machine. All sewing machines work basically the same way, you will have a pressure foot that guides the thread, a needle and thread that make stitches, and a foot pedal that operates how fast or slow you go. With quilting, any sewing machine will work as you just need to be able to do a straight stitch. When sewing our squares together, you will want to use a 1/4″ seam. Take a moment to locate it before you start sewing. You’ll line your fabric up right along this line. Go slow and be careful to keep it right on the line. The more precise you are now, the more even your blocks will be later.

Lay out your squares of fabric in matching stacks. Since we used 9 fabrics, we’ll use one of each fabric in our final block. If you have more or less fabrics, just mix things up so that you don’t end up with too many multiples of the same in each block.

Step 1: Take 2 squares, place them right sides together, making sure the edges are lined up. Sew 1/4″ seam down one edge.

Step 2: Open them up and add a 3rd square to the side of one of them. Place the squares right sides together and sew with a 1/4″ seam. Set this strip of 3 squares aside.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 to make 3 strips of 3 squares.

Step 4: Iron all your strips. If you take the time to iron your blocks now, it will make your top lay nicer and be easier to put together later.

Step 5: Layout your strips in the order you want them to be. Place the top strip on the middle strip, right sides together. Line them up on the edges and at the seams where you sewed the squares together. Use a few pins to keep things in place. Sew them with a 1/4″ seam.

Step 6: Now place your bottom strip on the middle strip in the same way and sew with a 1/4″ seam. Press both seams.

You have now made a 9 patch block! Simply repeat the process until you have 12 blocks total.

Set these aside and tomorrow we are going to mix things up and layout how our quilt is going to look.