One great way to make a quilt faster is to increase the size of the individual components. For example, instead of sewing 2.5 inch squares together, why not sew 5 inch or even 10 inch squares together? An added bonus? A quilt made with larger blocks can be quite striking.
The jumbo granny square quilt above was made from 5 inch squares instead of the standard 2.5 inch pieces and measures about 36 x 36 inches.
Cross and Crown - For Sale at Terrain |
Here are a few great super-sized quilt tutorials I have seen out there:
Giant Vintage Star Tutorial
Monster Sized Hexagon Quilt Tutorial
Super Sized Shoo-Fly Quilt Tutorial
Jumbo Tumbler Quilt Tutorial
But say you have a favorite block that you want to super size? Here is how you do it:
- Decide what block you want to super-size
- Decide how large you want your quilt to be (be flexible)
- Decide how many blocks you want in the finished quilt. Do you want one huge block? Four giant blocks or a 2 x 3 layout of 6 blocks?
Say you have a 12 inch block you want to super-size and you want a quilt that is about 74 inches square and you want to make it out of 4 blocks. That would mean that each block would have to be about 37 inches square. 37 is an awkward number, so lets round down to 36 inches and be content with a 72 inch quilt.
Thankfully, 12 goes into 36 three times. Our super-sized block is three times larger than the original block.
But how large to cut your pieces? Can you just multiply everything by 3? Not quite.
- First, subtract off the seam allowances
- Then multiply by three (or how ever many you need to) and
- Add back on the seam allowances
Square and rectangular pieces will have a seam allowance of .5 inches (.25 for each side) that needs to be subtracted off.
Half square triangles need to have 7/8ths of an inch subtracted off.
So...take each pattern piece, subtract off the seam allowance, multiply by 3 then add the seam allowance back on and complete the block as the pattern instructs.
Need the quilt to be a bit bigger? You could add some sashing between the block or add a border.
So easy, so fast and so striking!
A win-win!
Have you ever super-sized a quilt?
Great post. I really love to super size and have a tutorial in mind to share. Meanwhile, I shared your post on my AQT fb page and will link to your post at some point. I think super-sizing is such a great alternative! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this! I have been wanting to do a japanese x quilt but have been stifled by anxiety for how much time it would take(impatience)! I think a 4 big blocks or even one humongous block would look great! Hmmmm, time to do some math!
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