Quilt As You Go Block Tutorial!

Want to know all about the magical world of quilt as you go blocks?  I thought you did.  It's pretty awesome and forgiving if you don't feel like measuring or thinking, and they go pretty fast, so you can make a bunch in one go and they're already quilted!

So first you cut your batting.  I cut mine 12.5 because that's the size of my ruler.  Of course, it's going to shrink on you once you start quilting and you'll want to square it up again when you're finished.  So if you want to have bigger finished squares, cut the batting bigger, probably by at least 1.5 inches.

Now, this is the fun part, and where I started to deviate from all the tutorials and how-to's that I found.  That first piece of fabric, just plop it down in the center.  Don't measure where it's going, or try to center it perfectly.  I didn't even care if that piece of fabric was actually squared off itself.  Just put it down and quilt some lines back and forth over it.  I used the outside edge of my foot as a guide, but I'd do some quilted lines wider, skinnier, or a mix of the two.

Then, lay the next piece of fabric down and sew it down.  Again, don't over think it, just make sure that when you sew, it's a straight line so that you're fabric will lay flat once you flip it over to quilt.  (Of course, if you botch that bit, you can just make your first quilted pass really close to the seam to really make it lay down.  Told you it was great if you didn't want to be accurate!)

Quilt it down!  

That weird zig zag bothering you?  I found a bunch of featherweight fusible interfacing and I'm using it to piece together my batting scraps, but I don't trust it, so I do a super big zaggle to hold it together.

I used every scrap possible, which meant that sometimes I'd sew them together to make up the length that I needed.  It's pretty fun to mash together all those little bits, and I got to do some fussy cutting to add cars and flowers to some of my other blocks.

The placement of each layer is different from a traditional log cabin block because I didn't add my sides in a consistent pattern, like always going clockwise when sewing down the next layer, or doing top and bottom then sides.  I just sew with whatever scraps looked good and require the least amount of cutting.  Sometimes, like here, it would get a bit rectangle-y and I'll try to even it out a little.  Other time's I'll just keep adding wherever.

Keep adding layers until the entire piece of batting is covered.  

Then you trim it down to the size you want.  Like I said, I initially made my batting squares 12.5", but I trim them down to 12".  

These are really fun to make, and the weirder they look, the more I like them when they're all together.  I just have four more to make then I can officially finish this quilt.  I'm pretty excited to finally get to cuddle under it!  

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!