How to "Book" a Quilt

I don’t actually know if that’s the proper term for it, but I pieced this queen-size quilt top in one hour by utilizing this brilliant method! I know that sounds nuts, but it’s true! I think this method would only work well with square or rectangle blocks pieced into rows. I’m not sure if it could be adapted to piecing diagonal rows, but maybe I’ll try to figure that out next.

Okay so, I had to make a very simple queen-size quilt for someone out of her own collection of small floral prints. She had been collecting these for many years and just wanted big squares… easy enough right? And that’s when I thought of a method someone had shown me a while back for quickly piecing a whole quilt together.

I laid out all my blocks into rows. I cut 12” squares, and this quilt is eight squares wide by nine squares long. I was tight on floor space so I had to overlap the squares, but you get the idea.

Now, to build the rows. Place the second square in each row right side down on the first square. These will be horizontal rows, so I have paired up the first two squares in each row before taking them all to the machine at the same time.

Here, I have my organized stack of paired-up blocks. I fed them through the machine with a ¼” seam allowance one right after the other, chain piecing style.

Once I got to the end of the stack, I removed the whole string of them, but I didn’t clip between the blocks, because they need to stay chained together for this to work.

I scooped up the number three blocks from each row into a neat pile and set it beside the machine.

Starting at the top row again, I opened the first two blocks and added the third block to that row. I chain pieced each row's third block onto that row, and fed them into the machine one after another not clipping the thread between blocks.

Here it is with just three blocks in each row. You can see how they are all still attached in order.

Okay, all the rows are together now and chained to each other as you can see. Now, it’s time to do those long horizontal seams.

I folded the top row down onto row two and stitched the seam to join them together. I hadn’t pressed my seams from the joining of the blocks, so I just flip-flopped them to get them to nest.

And an hour later, here it is! All pieced :) Then I was off to quilt and bind…

Wouldn’t this make a great and fast picnic blanket?!

Happy Sunday everyone,

Krista

Follow all my quilty adventures on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Visit my Youtube channel for free tutorials and tips. If you like my patterns, you can buy them on Etsy, and here on the website.