“Cornucopia,” from Big ’n Easy by Judy Hopkins, starts with Square-in-a-Square blocks. Nine-Patch blocks in sweet ’30s prints star in “Take 5…Visits the General Store,” from More Take 5 Quilts by Kathy Brown. “Don’t Interrupt!,” from Country Threads Goes to Charm School by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene, features the simple Rail Fence block. Check out these examples of fabulous quilts made from easy quilt blocks. With all this talk of quick and easy, it’s good to remember that just because the blocks are simple doesn’t mean a quilt is boring. See more of the astonishing variety of blocks in this treasury here: 501 Rotary-Cut Quilt Blocks. (That’s more than 3000 possibilities!) There were so many good options it was hard to decide what to show, so we chose just a few to feature below. To find more, we dove into 501 Rotary-Cut Quilt Blocks by Judy Hopkins, an amazing resource in which every block is given in six sizes. Those are just a few of the dozens of simple quilt blocks quilters have loved for years. Just imagine how quickly you can finish that quilt! And half-square triangles are easy to make in pairs, so there’s another block that reproduces in a hurry. Using 2½" strips from a Jelly Roll, we actually made four Rail Fence blocks in 10 minutes.
A few that spring to mind immediately are Rail Fence, Nine Patch, Square in a Square, and Half-Square Triangles.
So what blocks come together that quickly? Look at classic beginner quilt blocks, just for starters. And if you use chain piecing, that single block will turn into a stack before you know it. It’s true! We know because we timed ourselves just for fun. Do you know what we found? A surprising number of easy quilt blocks that you can cut, sew, and press in less than 10 minutes. There are many different ways you can do this, but the basic idea is all pretty much the same: you stack your pieced block, with batting and backing cut to the same size, sandwich them together and quilt them first, and then actually join blocks together.Work, school, after-school activities, appointments, shopping, cooking, cleaning…whew! Do you sometimes feel you’ll never find time to quilt? We feel that way too, so we set out to find ways to squeeze a little quilting into small chunks of time. The basic idea is to quilt all of your layers together, as you are piecing your quilt, so that you are working with smaller, more manageable pieces. So as I was searching for a better solution to my quilting dilemma, I came across the idea of quilting as you go. (I mean, really, what’s with these kids needing to eat all of the time? They are totally killing my sewing machine dreams!) As much as I would do just about anything for one of those giant, crazy awesome long-armed sewing machines specifically meant for quilting, I’m not really thinking that is going to happen any time soon. It’s a giant workout, constantly pushing, pulling, and trying to keep track of a big rolled up hunk of quilt shoved into a regular sized sewing machine. The one problem I have, however, with every quilt I make, is the fact that it is awful hard to machine quilt on just your regular, run of the mill sewing machine. I’m a beginner yet, so it’s constantly challenging and fun and creative all at once. Quilting is something that I absolutely enjoy.
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