Quilting

Step 5 Easy piecing technique: traditional tiled blocking

A traditional method of quilting is to design a pattern from tiled geometric blocks. You can pick any pattern that pleases you, but the main question you have to answer is "Where can I cut this pattern to create repeating elements?" The idea is to make squares, strips, and repeating shapes that you can easily sew together with straight lines. Depending on what you're trying to do, this stage can be sort of like a puzzle. I spent a long time staring at hexagonal tilings before I came up with the cutting pattern used for the quilt in the images below.

Though it was easiest to construct the hexagon lattice in strips, it's more common to fit mini patterns into square blocks. There are libraries of quilt block patterns you can find in books or on the internet, many of which even have old timey names. Just search the web for "Quilt Block" and you'll find more ideas for cheesy geometric arrangements than you ever wanted. The nice thing about the block approach is that each square is like an independent little mini project--you can do one a day, parallelize creation by distributing blocks among friends, and maintain interest in the project as it comes together in satisfying little bites.

Also, smaller square blocks are easier to wrangle than large swatches of fabric; this is true in general--you always want to use a divide and conquer strategy to piece your quilt together. If you're constructing a line of 8 squares don't just sew a line together one after another; sew together in 2s then 4s, then join the two halves into a line of 8. It will be much easier to handle the fabric, to to mention detect misalignments if you keep the pieces you're working on smaller for longer and always divide in the middle.