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53 Quilt Blocks Free Patterns

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Let’s find out what types of quilt blocks you can sew to make your quilting sessions more enticing! We’ve got here an extensive collection of free quilt block patterns for you to check out!

For more ideas on how to get creative with your beautiful quilt block patterns, here’s our post on Free Quilt Patterns you could try! There are even some unique quilt blocks for you to try out in our picks, so don’t miss out on it.

Let's discover what quilt blocks you can make to spice up your quilting sessions! Browse our extensive collection of free quilt block patterns!

How To Sew Quilt Blocks

  1. Select a quilt block tutorial.
  2. Prepare all the tools and materials as instructed in the tutorial.
  3. Prewashing your fabrics would help preshrink them and test their color fastness. But if you like the vintage wrinkling on your quilt projects, then you may opt for laundering it after it’s complete! Read more on when you should prewash the fabric.
  4. Cut your fabrics as indicated or prepare your precut fabrics.
  5. Patch your fabric pieces together according to the pattern in the guide with a quarter-inch seam allowance, and you’ve got yourself a nice quilt block!

Supplies and Tools needed:

You would require most of the following items listed below to complete your quilting project.

  • Plain or patterned fabrics of your choice
  • Quilting Pins
  • Thread
  • Sewing Machine
  • Scissors
  • Rotary cutter and Cutting Mat 
  • Iron and Ironing Mat
  • Measuring Tape
  • Erasable fabric pen or chalk
  • Acid-free glue stick for paper piecing quilt blocks

Optional but helpful

We have here a few types of acrylic rulers and presser foot attachments that could help you in perfecting your quilting projects! These may not be compulsory, but they’ll definitely speed up and enhance your quilt blocks.

Acrylic rulers:

These are transparent rulers that are hard and durable. These rulers are helpful for fabric cutting and preparation to measure any excess fabric. To start off, here are a few basic rulers you could equip yourself with.

  • Long ruler (at least 18 to 24 inches long): These can help you measure your fabric yardage accurately by width of fabric (WOF) or length of fabric (LOF).
  • Square ruler: These are used for squaring up your blocks, cutting squares, and checking that your quilt blocks measure up to the correct size.
  • Rectangle ruler: It’s a great tool for cutting smaller strips or blocks out of yardage. Its also a great size for trimming block sides straight and checking the borders or binding.
  • Triangle rulers: These are designed to speed up your process in cutting equilateral triangles, half-square triangles, and quarter-square triangles. They come in different sizes and angles to accommodate various quilting patterns.

Presser foot attachments:

  • Quarter-inch foot/ patchwork foot: This presser foot ensures that a uniform width of 1/4″ between the seam and the fabric edge is maintained until the end of your stitch.
  • Walking foot/ feeding foot: This foot assists in feeding multiple layers of fabric through the sewing machine in an even manner for a straight line. It also helps prevent any bunching or stretching of the fabrics.

Beginner’s Notes

Don’t fret! We’ve found some easy quilt blocks that look difficult and complex so you can achieve that impressive quilt pattern piece. Just make sure to equip yourself with some fundamentals on sewing and some of its terminology! This amazing guide on How to Hand Sew is a great way to start acquainting yourself with a few hand-sewing stitches and the supplies necessary. You’ll get all the tips and tricks needed to hone your skills!

Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is a quilt block?

Quilt blocks are formed when pieces of fabric are sewn together to form a unit that creates a large, decorative patchwork. Each quilt block is a self-contained piece made up of squares, rectangles, or triangles sewn together in various patterns. These blocks are fused together to form the quilt top, which would be further layered with batting and backing fabric.

2. What are the techniques for sewing quilt blocks?

There are a few ways to create quilt blocks. Here are the common ways to sew quilt blocks:
– Traditional Piecing
– Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP)
– English Paper Piecing (EPP)
– Appliqué
Read the following FAQ for the details on each of them.

3. What Are Traditional Piecing Quilt Blocks?

This Traditional Piecing is the most common quilting technique, where you sew fabric pieces together using a quarter-inch seam allowance. This method is great for piecing up fabric pieces with simple geometrical shapes, such as squares, rectangles, triangles, sometimes hexagons, diamonds, and circles too.

These geometrical fabric pieces are sewn together to form smaller blocks, such as 4-patch, 9-patch, Half Square Triangle (HST), Quarter Square Triangle (QST), Split Quarter Square Triangle (SQST), Flying Geese, and so on.

These smaller blocks are then sewn together to create bigger block patterns, such as hourglass, broken dishes, pinwheels, Dutchman’s Puzzle, various styles of star blocks, etc.

You will find them in the list below.

4. What are Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP) Quilt Blocks?

Foundation Paper Piecing has gained popularity in recent years. Because of its creativity and flexibility to create virtually any pattern, Quilters commonly use foundation paper piecing to create highly detailed and complex quilt blocks.

The paper serves as a guide for accurately sewing fabric pieces together, especially when dealing with intricate or irregular shapes that feature odd angles, sharp points, or small pieces.

The fabric pieces are sewn in numerical or alphabetical order onto the foundation paper or template. The foundation paper is carefully ripped away along the stitching lines once the section is completed.

We hope you enjoy these lovely foundation Paper Piecing patterns that we have included in the list.

5. What are English Paper Piecing (EPP) Quilt Blocks?

EPP is an ingenious way to make quilt blocks without a sewing machine. All you need is some cardstock or precut templates and a pair of scissors, and you’re ready! You could even finish a few quilt blocks on the go!

It involves folding the fabric over a paper cutout and hand-sewing each piece together to form a quilt block before the paper is removed. With a paper cutout, English Paper Piecing (EPP) ensures that the pieces maintain their shape and are aligned correctly during the hand-sewing process.

There are many shapes and sizes of EPP precut available in the market: hexagons, diamonds, triangles, half-hexagons, half-diamonds, pentagons, apple cores, honeycombs, and jewels, to name a few.

However, you can also make your own EPP templates. Learn how to DIY EPP templates so you can start your project now and don’t have to wait for your template shipment to arrive.

We have included some beautiful patterns for English Paper Piecing in the following list.

6. What Are Appliqué Quilt Blocks?

Appliqué is a technique where smaller fabric pieces are sewn onto a larger background piece to create decorative motifs or designs. This can be done by hand or using a sewing machine for raw-edge appliqué or turned-edge appliqué. Learn how to mass-produce fusible appliqué pieces so that you can save time in your quitting journey.

Find more applique designs in the following list.

7. What sewing machine should I use for quilting?

If you’re a beginner in hopes of pursuing a range of sewing projects from garments to soft toys and quilts, you could check out our selection of the best sewing machines for beginners — where we discuss key features, functions, and budget.

If you are serious about quilting, you might want an upgrade. Check out this list of the Best Quilting Sewing Machines. Before choosing a quilting sewing machine, a few factors to take into account would be the throat space, speed control, feed-dog ability, and thread tension control.

8. Top 10 Ways to Use Orphan Blocks

Orphan blocks are finished quilt blocks that have not been used in a larger quilting project. They could be leftovers from earlier projects, blocks you made for practice, or anything else that didn’t make the cut for the final quilt. These blocks could be used in a variety of ingenious ways instead of being thrown away:

Sew a mini quilt (if you have collected some)
Sew a table runner.
Sew a drink coaster.
Sew a mug rug.
Sew a small pouch.
Sew a pincushion.
Sew a pillow.
Sew pot holders and trivets.
Sew a cup cozy.
Sew a front pocket for your apron.

What’s Next?

  • Start sewing and share your completed DIY apron on Facebook and/or Instagram. Remember to tag us @craftpassion so that we can see your work.
  • Pin it to Pinterest for a future To-Quilt List.
  • Share with your sewing groups for a quilt-along event.
  • Browse more free sewing patterns to make, particularly the free quilt patterns that you can make with some of these quilt blocks.

53 Free Quilt Block Patterns

This is where you’ll find a list of quilt block designs to incorporate into your next quilt! These include traditional quilt blocks, EPP, FPP, and applique patterns as well, so don’t miss out on them.

Flying geese quilt blocks

This quilt block resembles a group of geese flying in the same direction where the big triangles are geese, and the corners represent the wings. It was known to have been a symbol of hope for those enslaved during the 19th century.

Author bio

Joanne Loh

~ Founder and Editor ~
Born into a creative family, Joanne Loh has over 40 years of experience in sewing, crocheting, and knitting. Well-known for her creative approach to DIY crafts, her creations demonstrate a strong dedication to quality and spreading her enthusiasm among the crafting community.
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DIANE SCHMIDT

Saturday 9th of September 2023

i LOVE ALL OF THEM. i WISH YOU HAD A BOOK WITH THE PATTERNS. i WOULD DEFINITELY BUY IT.