As someone who gets bored easily of repetitive tasks, I love a quick and easy sewing project; especially one that makes a quilt with only 9 blocks!
I've made a few St. Louis 16 Patch quilts lately using oversized blocks and love how fast they sew up, which got me thinking... let's take a "traditional" block, enlarge it, and make an entire quilt top with only 9 blocks. There are plenty of free quilt block patterns out there and it didn't take me long to figure out the dimensions for a 24" (finished) Antique Tile block.
Want to make one for yourself? Follow along below!
Fabrics & cutting
You'll need 3 colours per block and for the sake of this tutorial I'm going to label them C1, C2 and C3. I keep this colour key handy, especially if I'm making my quilt blocks scrappy.
C1: Cut 4 rectangles at 4.5" x 8.5"
C2: Cut 4 squares at 4.5" x 4.5" and 4 rectangles at 4.5" x 8.5"
C3: Cut 4 squares at 4.5" x 4.5", 4 rectangles at 4.5" x 8.5" and 1 square at 8.5" x 8.5"
Block construction
I'm a fan of nesting seams, so there will be pressing instructions included to help reduce bulk, but if you prefer to press open/another direction, you do you! :)
Sew all C2 and C3 squares together, and sew all C1 and C3 rectangles together. Press all seams allowances AWAY from C3.
Sew the C2 rectangles onto the C2+C3 sets in the following order. You don't need to worry about pressing these yet.
We'll now sew our blocks into three rows! The arrows below show both block order and pressing direction.
If you've pressed the corner blocks as written in the first step, your C3 shapes will nest nicely as you're sewing your sections together.
Once you've sewn your rows together, press them in the direction of the arrows. The top and bottom row: press outwards from the centre. The middle section: press towards the centre. You'll notice in the middle section the outer blocks already have been pressed in this direction, so just keep going!
Now sew your three rows together! If you've pressed as requested you'll be able to nest the sections as you're sewing the rows.
Pressing the final seams: This one is up to you, as I've made a version with just these 9 blocks, and I'm working on a version with sashing between the blocks. If you're sewing the blocks together without sashing, once you've got these last seams sewn press these three seams up or down, so that you can nest the seams with neighbouring blocks. If you're adding sashing press however you like!
Finishing your quilt
Baste, quilt and bind as you prefer! Because of the geometric nature of the blocks, straight line quilting along seam lines is a quick and easy quilting option, but you could also use some
fun rulers and do some awesome custom quilting.
Options
Make it scrappy like mine, or use yardage of 3 colours and alternate your blocks. The important part is to have fun making this quick quilt!
Share your quilt!
If you've followed this tutorial I'd love to see your finished quilt - tag me on Instagram or Bluesky (@jennmcmillan) and use #XLantiquetilequilt so I can see them all together!
Handout coming soon!
This quilt pattern and tutorial are free to use, for personal or charity purposes only. Not to be resold.
Happy sewing!
Jenn
