Easy and virtually free patchwork quilt – Part 3

Read part 1
Read part 2

Assembling the quilt top

Time to sew this baby together. Start with the top row. Grab the top left block and it’s neighbour. Flip the second block over and position it on top of the first block so the front faces are together. Sew them together down the right-hand side. (Sorry if this is a bit obvious) You can pin the pieces together first if this helps you.


Speed Tip: You don’t need to reverse the stitches at the beginning and end of the line of sewing like you would in dressmaking.

Usually with patchwork you sew the pieces with very small 6mm seams. This avoids wastage and lots of bulk. In this case my fabric was very loosely woven and fraying like a bastard, so a 6mm seam would pull apart in a jiffy. I used a 1cm seam. If you are unsure what to do test a bit using the scraps you trimmed off earlier. Yank it about to see how it holds up.

Open out and iron the seam flat from the back. Don’t faff around opening out the seam - I always iron the seam over to one side like this:


Now attach the third block to the second in exactly the same way.


Keep adding blocks until the top row is sewn together in a long strip. Iron all the seams to one side, and all in the same direction.



Now start on the second row. Do exactly the same, but this time iron the seams in the opposite direction. This is so that, when you eventually sew the rows together, there isn’t too much bulk where 4 blocks meet.

Stitch all the rows in the same way, alternating the direction you iron the seams. Put each row back in it’s position when it’s done so you don’t get them in a muddle.

Now it’s time to join the rows together. Take rows 1 and 2 and lay them face to face. Pin them together so that the join of each block on row 1 matches up with the join of the blocks on row 2. Put a pin at each join.


Sew right along, removing the pins as you get to them. Make sure your carefully pressed seams stay in the direction you made them. Twisted seams don’t look very nice but if you get one by accident don’t worry. Press the bejeezus out if it with a steam iron and you’ll be ok.

Keep adding the rows in the same way, and don’t skip the pinning part here. It will look 100 times better if your corners at least vaguely match up. I am the world laziest pinner, but even I pin when I want the corners of blocks to match. If you have lined up the joins, and pinned properly you should get perfect points, like this:


And on the back your seams should look like this, going in opposite directions:


Turn it over to the front and press the whole thing again while admiring your handiwork.

Well lookie here – you completed the quilt top. Well done. Have a large G&T.