Quilt as You Go Quilt Block #1 – String Quilt Block

Often when you have strips of fabric leftover it can become a bit of an issue as to what to do with them. We have a number of different ways of using up left over fabric including crumb quilting and string quilt blocks. These can be done in two ways. You can sew the strips onto batting, join the strips together and then add your backing or you can do what we are going to do today, which is, sew the batting, backing and strips together so that the quilt block is completely quilted. Then it’s just a matter of sewing the blocks together.

So let’s get on and make a quilt as you go quilt block. This method is super easy to make and it’s a great scrap buster. You can make the string quilt block as small or as large as need it to be for your project so I am not going to give exact measurements. (I will tell you though that for this tutorial I made mine 11″x11″)

What you need.

• 1 square of backing fabric
• 1 square of batting
• a bunch of scrappy strips

• 505 temporary adhesive spray (optional) you can pin instead.

Watch the video below or scroll down for written instructions

(Can’t see the video? You may have an ad blocker installed)

Method

• Place the backing fabric face down on the mat.
• Spray with adhesive spray
• Place batting on top of backing.

• Starting on the diagonal of the block, place your first strip face up on the batting.

• Place the second strip, and all other strips, face down on the previous strip.

• Sew with a _^1/4″ seam.

• Press the strip back onto the batting and place the next strip face on the strip just sewn. Some people just finger press the strips but I like to press each strip with the iron. It’s my personal preference and you can certainly do what you feel comfortable doing.

• Continue adding strips in the same way until you reach the end of the block.

• Now turn the block around and continue to fill in the other side.

• Turn the block over so that the backing is facing upwards and trim off the excess fabric. Keep the cut pieces of fabric to use in your crumb quilting or other projects. You can trim the block with your scissors

• or you can use you rotary cutter.

Make a few blocks and you can use them in quilts, as table runners etc.

This is a great way to use up your scraps, and these blocks can by used in all sorts of projects.

See how I join my QAYG quilt blocks

If you want to see how I join my quilt as you go, quilt blocks together then here is a link.

Here is an example of Quilt as You Go quilt block projects:

• Quilt as you Go Reversible Quilt