Block of the Month -March 2015 Classic Four Patch

It makes sense to me to begin the Blocks of the Month with the simplest block of all, the classic four patch. This block is very versatile and it is often the first one learned when people take patchwork and quilting lessons.

Here it is....

As you can see, it is made up of four pieces and they are square. That is all there is to it. The real trick, however, is to get the four pieces to match up perfectly in the middle.

So how do we begin? Well, we need a square. I am not going to complicate this by giving you a template to print off. You can draw a square by yourself. If you are a beginner, make your square a little bit larger so that you have something to grab onto. I would suggest 11cm x 11cm.

Draw your square onto a piece of card so that you can use it again and again. Now, audition your fabrics! When you are happy with the choice, cut out four pieces like this

Sew the first two together so that you have a unit like this

Repeat for the other two. You now have two of these

All that is left now is to join them together but before you do, finger press the seams so that they are away from each other like this

See how one seam goes one way and the other seam faces away from it? Finger pressing simply means to run your finger (or fingernail) along the seam to crease it. You don't have to get the iron out for everything.

Pin your pieces together and sew the last seam. Open it out and you will have something that looks like this

You have made your first four patch! This is a mighty useful little critter and never consign it to the realms of the raw beginner. Use it for borders and repeating patterns. If you make a few of these with this diagonal pattern, when you join them up, they will create their own repeats.
You can mix them up with triangles too to create en pointe designs. We will get to that later.

I hope that you have found this useful. Thank you so much for stopping by and please feel free to put in requests for a block that you would like to have featured.

See you next time!

Love and hugs
Debbie xxx