Quiltcon Charity Quilt Block Tutorial

Improv Stripe Block Tutorial

These blocks are easy and fast to put together, but can look very striking when you start using them together!

For this block, you will need a number of strips ranging from 1”-5” tall and ~18-22” long. (A strip off of a fat quarter or half of WoF is great.) You can use anything more than 12.5” long, but making them longer means less stress later when trimming.

The first step is to pick out two strips you want to use next to each other in your block. They should be different colors, but the color combination is up to you. Notice that these do not need to be neatly trimmed. Just make sure they don’t get smaller than 1” tall at their shortest.

Lay out the two strips, right sides up, making sure they overlap. How much you overlap them will affect the amount of angle you can have between the two stripes. More overlap leaves room for a bigger angle.

Next, lay your ruler over the area where the two strips overlap and choose what angle you want to cut at. The more angle, the wonkier they will look. Make sure that the whole length of the ruler is covering areas where the stripes overlap. You need to be cutting both layers, not just one.

Once you’re happy with your angle, cut the strips using your ruler.

Remove the trimmings from both the top and bottom pieces. You should now have the two strips (still right side up) with trimmed edges that match angles.

Now put your stripes right sides together and sew. Cutting the way we did means that they will lay flat and will open straight instead of at an angle. No v-seams here! Press your seam open or to the side as desired.

That’s all there is to it! Keep adding strips. Try to mix up the angle direction and size of angles as well as strip height. But most of all, have fun playing. Keep going until your block is at least 12.5” tall.

Trim your block to 12.5” x 12.5” and you’re done!

Notes:
You can cut the fabric you have in the bag to create smaller stripes, but please use at least one of every fabric color in your bag.  If you take more than 1 bag to not mix fabrics in each bag.
Please return any unused stripes we need to make extras.