Block Friday: Nine-Patch with a Modern Quilting Twist – Quilting Daily

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Welcome to another Block Friday, our December alternative to Black Friday where we feature a quilt block. Today it’s a nine-patch–PLUS!

Nine-patch blocks make up the main components of this
Cross Quilt featured on the cover of Make It Patchwork!
By Vivika Hansen DeNegre, quilted by Saima Davis.

How do you turn a classic nine-patch design into modern quilt blocks? Arrange the fabric to create plus shapes pieced in a simple nine-patch framework and join them with strips combining colors from two neighboring blocks.

This modern twist on sashing can be further enhanced with light-to-dark value transitions in both foreground and background.

The vibrant tones and range of colors in this patchwork quilt are a feast for the eyes. And by using solid or tone-on-tone fabrics, you create a canvas on which to feature your quilting.

In this Cross Quilt I designed for Make It Patchwork! magazine, each Plus Block is made up of 5 squares of one color for the plus shape and 4 squares of another color for the corners.

The colors for the Sashing Blocks are determined by the adjacent Plus Blocks, 2 squares of upper Plus Block’s corner color and 1 square of the lower Plus Block’s corner color. (Fig.2)

This modern quilt design is easy to piece, but I strongly recommend you use a design wall to arrange your cut squares as positioning the colors in the nine-patches and sashing blocks is crucial to making the design work.

Once you have your blocks made and arranged, just stitch them in alternating columns, add batting and backing, quilt, and bind.

modern quilt blocks nine patch
This arrangement of the colors in the nine-patch and sashing blocks helps make this quilt modern.

You’ll find this modern quilt pattern and full directions, plus many more modern patchwork projects in our fun new magazine Make It Patchwork! It’s an especially great resource, with 28 easy-to-make gift projects for holidays, graduations, birthdays, and more.

P.S. This quilt would look completely different depending on the colors used. What fabric colors would you choose? Leave your comment below.

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