Today’s tutorial features our last strip-pieced block. This one is actually a mite easier than the nine-patch, so this should go quickly for you!
Fabric needed: 2 – 3.5″ x width of fabric strips. I used two beautiful prints from Penny Rose’s Meadow collection.
Put the right sides together and stitch a 1/4″ seam all the way down the sides.
Press the seam toward the darker fabric.
Cut the strip set in half.
Now you should have two strip sets that look like this.
With right sides together, stitch the two strip sets together.
Press toward the dark fabric again.
Take the strip set to the cutting mat. Line up the ruler with the seams and trim off the selvedge edges. This is also a great place to make sure that your seams are exactly 1/4″. The two middle strips should be exactly 3″.
Turn the strip set around. Line up the ruler on the seams again and cut 4 – 3.5″ pieces.
Now you should have 4 – 3.5″ units that look like this.
Turn two of them upside-down like this.
Now stitch two of the units together, butting up all three seams to make sure that the corners match. Pin seams if desired. Repeat for the other two units.
Press. It doesn’t matter which way you press at this point. Repeat for the other unit set.
Now you’ve got two units that look like this. How do your corners look? Perfect?
Stitch the two units together with a 1/4″ seam allowance, making sure to butt up those seams.
Press. Again, it doesn’t matter here which direction you press.
Here you go! A 16-patch. As you probably have guessed, you can do this strip-piecing method with any number of strips. We have tried 2, 3 and 4 strips.
If you were to do an entire quilt from 16-patch blocks, there would be no need to cut the strip set in half (Step #4). You would just make several strip sets — all with 4 strips — and cut them apart to make your units and blocks. Here is what a whole quilt from 16-patch blocks might look like with simple sashing.
What if you put in an alternating block?
I love the scrappy version!
Have fun with the strip-pieced blocks. We will learn about Half Square Triangles next time!