As a quilter and stitcher, I could not live without my rotary cutter. Can you believe it has only been around since 1979? You can quickly cut out blocks, squares and strips that are uniform and neat. Add a little math and a few stitches, an you will find some very creative quilt blocks made oh so much easier, with the use of a rotary cutter. Here I share four of my favorite ingenious rotary cut quilt blocks that will save you time and help you make more quilts even faster!
Half square triangles, eight at a time
Lindsay Conner from Craft Buds shared her Half Square Triangle Tutorial on Sew Mama Sew to create half square triangles, 8 at a time. These blocks can be trimmed to 4” or 3 ½” depending on which size fits your pattern better.
You start out with two 9” squares and with some marking, sewing and clever rotary cutting, you can get 8 half square triangles lickety split.
You can make a million great quilt patterns with just a half square triangle.
Flying Geese Easy Peasy, four at a time
Karen Johnson from Connecting Threads shared this easy quilt block tutorial to make four flying geese blocks.
To make four blocks at a time by rotary cutting just a few squares, go to the second method about half way down the post.
This rotary cut block uses one large square and four smaller squares of fabric to creatively make four finished blocks. You sew the first two smaller squares and cut it in half.
Then you iron each half.
Then you add another small square to each half to make the flying geese. This instruction makes a 4 ½” wide flying geese block, but it also includes tips and measurements to create the size you need.
Postage Stamp blocks, quick piece 16 patch
Rita Hodge of Red Pepper Quilts has a terrific postage stamp quilt tutorial that takes a much easier approach than sewing tiny pieces of fabric. A postage stamp quilt block is called that because it has lots of little stamp size pieces in it.
She stitches together 4 strips of fabric to begin her block.
Then she rotary cuts these strips to join to other sets to create a unique 16 patch of tiny postage stamp fabrics. So much easier than the tiny pieces.
I made mine with 1 1/2″ x 7 ” strips so that the stamps were 1″ squared.
Anita’s Arrowhead
Anita Grossman Soloman from Make It Simpler created this clever little rotary cut block.
It starts out with two squares and with a little stitching and rotary cutter slicing, you end up with a very cute arrowhead block. A free pdf download of the pattern instructions is currently available from Quiltmaker Magazine. On Anita’s Make it Simpler blog, she also has more information for different size blocks. I made a lovely baby quilt with all different lavendars and purples, it turned out great and was so quick to put together.
I hope these clever and ingenious rotary cut quilt blocks inspire you to create your own quilt in a jiffy. These time savers make the process so much more fun. Happy Stitching!
(The post Four Ingenious Rotary Cut Quilt Blocks first appeared on The Good Weekly.)