Nine Patch Tutorial and The First Block

It's Day One!

I made my first block for the quilt-along this morning, so I thought I'd take some photos as I went along for anyone who's never made a nine-patch before. And then I realized my CF card was full, so I only ended up with a few photos! So, just for you, I did another one. Don't worry, I didn't mind. And it's really easy, here I'll show you!

A nine-patch is just a quilt square made up of nine other squares. For our pattern, we'll start with nine 2 1/2" squares; 5 colored ones and 4 white. Like this:



Grab 3 of each and stitch them together, one colored and one white, using a 1/4" seam. When I do this, I do it assembly-line style. Stitch one pair and leave it on the machine. With a little space in between, go ahead and do the next one. Break the threads in between your pairs when you're done with all of them:

Don't mind the Curious George band-aid;
it's the first one I grabbed, I'm sure you understand :)

At this point, you should have three pairs together, and three lone squares, like this:



Next, stitch two colored squares to the white ones, and one white to the colored. Then press your seams toward the colored squares, like this:



Stitch those together and press (I just press the seams outward - not open), and you're done!


Don't worry about threads or anything just yet, unless you want to. You can also trim your block to make sure it's exactly 6 1/2" square, but I never do 'cause I'm lazy like that.