Royal Baby Quilt Sew-A-Long- Block A

Welcome to the first week of our Royal Baby Quilt Sew-along! We're so excited that you've joined us! The finished Royal Baby quilt has four each of four different block designs, for a total of 16 blocks inspired by traditional tartan plaids. Each block is 10” by 10” so the finished dimensions of the quilt are 40” by 40”. The quilt also has some extra touches made from bias tape for the added bling that your little prince or princess deserves! Since this is a sew-along, we will only be releasing a few of the instructions at a time.  

The main fabric of the Royal Baby quilt is Kaffe Fassett's shot cottons, which have a noticeably different warp and weft that gives a kick of visual interest to solid colors. Since the different warp and weft can make the fabrics appear different colors from slightly different angles, you may want them all to appear the same in your quilt. To help with this, you can mark the direction of the weave with a erasable arrow mark on your fabric, so that they all face the same direction when you start to piece your block. Or, if the slight difference won't bug you, you can always just wing it!

This week, we will be making all four of the Block A blocks that you will need for the quilt. These are the green blocks used in each each of the 4 corners in the quilt.

                                                                        Block A

The first thing you'll need to do is cut the pieces for Block A. If you purchased a kit from us (which includes all the fabric you need for the quilt top, binding, and backing!), you'll find a piece of green Shot Cotton that measures 12” by 44” and a 13.5” by 14” piece of Woven Stripes in a mostly yellow color palette. These are the pieces that you'll need to make Block A. If you didn't purchase a kit from us, you'll need a 3/8 yd piece of fabric for the background of the block and a fat quarter for the stripes. 

For each Block A (there are 4 total in the quilt), you will need:

 -  4 squares AA 5-1/4” by 5-1/4”

 - 1 strip AB 1.5” by 11”

 - 2 strips AC 1.5” by 5-1/4”

Make your cuts according to these diagrams so that you get the most of your piece of fabric!

To cut your blocks:

 

To cut the stripes:

Now that we have all the pieces cut, it's time to assemble them!  We recommend that after you cut all your fabrics, you lay them in stacks and label one of each cut in separate piles so that you can keep them all organized. 

Take your first AA square and sew it to an AC fabric strip, using a ¼ inch seam.  All seams should be ¼ inch throughout the this project. Then press the seam towards the AA block. 

This will be the top left side of the complete A block.  Take another AA square and sew it to an AC strip to make the bottom left portion of the block.  Press the seam towards the AA square.

At this point, you can either keep sewing your AA square to AC strips (6 more, for a total of 8) to make all the blocks at the same time or you can continue on to complete one block at a time.  It's up to you!

Now, take an AA block that isn't already sewn to an AC strip and sew it onto the other side of the AC strip.  Press the seam towards the AA square.  You should now have the top half of the block completed!

Sew another loose AA square to the other side of an AA/AC combo to complete the bottom half of the block.  Once more, press the seams toward the AA square so that they don't get too bulky in the middle of the block. 

Now you have the top and the bottom of the block ready to go; we're just missing the middle strip!  So, take the AB strip and sew it to one side of your AA/AC/AA combo. 

Then sew another combo on the other side of the AB strip.

Voila!

You may have a block that isn't completely square (it's okay. I won't tell!).  With the sizes of the squares and strips that we cut, we left an extra 1/4” around the outside of the block to help you square it up to the needed size.  You need a block that is 10 -1/2” by 10-1/2”.  The finished block will be 10” by 10”.  The extra 1/4” is the seam allowance for sewing the blocks together!

Repeat these steps so that you have 4 blocks for this design.

If you'd like a printable version of these instructions, please click here. We've created a special Royal Baby SAL page on our website that we will update each week with a downloadable PDF of each week's instructions.

Tune in next week when we'll share how to make mysterious Block B!

Happy Sewing!
Jenn and Gus