A Patchwork Quilt takes small pieces of fabric and turns them into a beautiful and useful thing.

If you think about it, creating a patchwork quilt top really is crazy. You take a piece of fabric, cut it up into small pieces and then sew all those pieces back together again. Of course, it started out as a necessity to not waste anything by using every small bit of fabric to make a quilt to keep the family warm. But, nowadays, most quilts are not made out of necessity and the creativity of the process is what most of us enjoy.

A patchwork quilt square can be as simple as 4 smaller squares sewn together. Or even 2 triangles sewn together to make the square. A common simple quilt square is the nine-patch square. It is a square made up of 9 smaller squares, sewn in 3 rows of 3 squares each. Another simple square is the Roman Stripe pattern. It is a square consisting of 3 rectangles sewn together.

At a showing of quilts I recently attended, there was a full/queen size quilt made up of over 40,000 hexagonal pieces. Each piece was smaller than 2" on all sides. The pattern, sometimes called postage stamp because of the size of the pieces, was not necessarily complicated, but the size and sheer number of pieces makes it a time-consuming project. The patience that quilt required is way more than I even dream to have!

Patchwork quilts can also be as complicated as anyone could imagine. The traditional patchwork squares have geometric shaped pieces (squares, triangles, rectangles, circles) and they are arranged in hundreds (maybe thousands) of different designs.

Click here to see some of the patchwork quilts that have been added. And scroll down to the bottom to see more that viewers have added themselves.




McCall's website has a great collection of free quilt block patterns. Browse the collection or search by the name of the block. I'm sure you'll find inspiration for your next quilt. And be sure to come back here and share it with us all.

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Quilts Other Visitors Have Shared

Click the links below to see some beautiful quilts from other visitors to this page...

The Beatles and a Movie for Bob - back  starstarstarstarstar
This was made as a Christmas gift in 2009 for my 16 year old nephew. He is a HUGE Beatles fan and also loves movies. I'd purchased the movie fabric from ...

The Beatles and a Movie for Bob - front  starstarstarstarstar
This was made as a Christmas gift in 2009 for my 16 year old nephew. He is a HUGE Beatles fan and also loves movies. I'd purchased the movie fabric from ...

Blow Your Whistle  starstarstarstarstar
My friend's husband is a steam train buff. I'd been looking for steam engine fabric for along time before I finally found this. The quilt was made for ...

Purple It Is!  starstarstarstarstar
When I asked my sister-in-law what theme I could use for a quilt for my niece, she said "purple". So, I made "Purple It Is!" for my niece for Christmas ...

Kaleidescope Quilt  starstarstarstarstar
This is my first kaleidescope quilt. Using batiks was a challenge but I like the subtle gradations of color. Also, I learned the importance of using more ...

Wizard of Oz Under the Rainbow  starstarstarstarstar
I started a journey into Wizard of Oz quilts in Oct 08 making one for my youngest daughter, her husband sang Somewhere Over The Rainbow to her at their ...

America Forever  starstarstarstarstar
I made this quilt for my nephew, Brady, over the election process in 2008. He was very involved in the entire political process. I wanted to encourage ...

My Garden  starstarstarstarstar
When Northcott fabric company came out with the "Flower of the Month" line of fabrics, I ordered 1/2 yard cuts of each month without knowing what I would ...

The Season Starts  Not rated yet
The pattern is "5 Halves Make a Quilt". The fabric was bought as a bundle. I finished it the day before Nascar's 2009 season started. It was donated ...

Football quilt  Not rated yet
This quilt is made for Project Linus. It has old time football scenes. The pattern came with the group of fabric. Very quick and easy.

Pink Pastel Quilt  Not rated yet
This is a quilt I made with a collection of fabric that came together with a pattern. It was very quick and easy to complete and makes a great pattern ...

Batik Puzzle quilt  Not rated yet
This quilt is my first excursion into using Batik fabrics. It was quite a challenge to find the right color match for each and every piece for the puzzle ...

Colleen's Wonderful Wizard of Oz   Not rated yet
Number 4 in my series of Quilting Treasures Wizard of Oz collections.

Colleen's Follow The Yellow Brick Road  Not rated yet
Number 3 in my series of Quilting Treasures Wizard of Oz collection is Follow The Yellow Brick Road.

Colleen's Over the Rainbow  Not rated yet
This quilt is the second in my series of Quilting Treasures Wizard of Oz quilts. I also have made several combining the Over The Rainbow and Follow The ...

My Swedish Garden  Not rated yet
My daughter and I took a StackNWhack class at Top Shelf Quilts in Frankfort IL. I was leery of the class because I thought it would be beyond my capabilities,...


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