How to Make a Bloom Quilt - Free Quilting Tutorial

Hey everyone! It is cold outside so I wanted to work on something that felt
like springtime. This is the Bloom Quilt and I can't wait to show you how to make it.

So this quilt is made up of these beautiful big blocks and it comes together really really fast. To make it you're going to need one package of 10 inch squares and I use this beautiful collection called Maven designed by Maureen Cracknell for Art Gallery Fabrics. You're also going to need two and a half yards of your background fabric, three and 3/4 yards of your backing and I just think this is so beautiful, and ¾ of a yard for your binding.

So on this quilt we just did three blocks across by three down and it's sashed in between with a 2 and 1/2 in sashing, and I quilted it all over with the variety quilt pattern and I think it turned out so beautiful. So let's go ahead and get started!

All right. To begin, let's take a look at our block. And we are going to start by making these outer corner blocks. To do that you are going to need one of your 10 inch squares and a 6 inch background square, as well as some 2 and 1/2 in background squares.

So let's begin. I'm just going to press this so it lays nice and flat and we're going to cut this first with a 6 inch strip, just like so. Then I'm going to set this aside and we are going to subcut this so it's a 6 inch square. And this piece here, you can just set aside. And then from this other larger piece we are going to cut a 2 and 1/2 inch strip, and this little bit can be set aside. We're going to turn this and sub cut it into 2 and 1/2 inch squares. And so because this was 10 inch, you should be able to get all four, one more cut. There we go and I'll just set those aside for now.

All right and now let's pair this up with our background square, matches up nicely and I'm going to go ahead and grab a pin and we are going to draw an X corner to corner in both directions. Once we have that marked, we can take this to the sewing machine and we're going to sew 1/4 inch on both sides of those lines that we have drawn. So let's go ahead and do that.

All right, so we've gone down both sides of that first X and now we're going to go ahead and go down the other line on both sides as well. Just going to swing this around, perfect. All right, now we have that done I can go ahead and take my ruler and I want to cut this in half both directions and that should be intersecting our stitch lines there in the middle. So we'll make a cut this way and this way since this is a 6 inch square, it should be 3 inch in. Now that we've cut that, we can cut on each of these lines that we drew just like so, and this method gives you eight half square triangles which is the exact number we're going to need to make our corner units.

So let's go ahead and finish trimming these and then I will press them open and meet you back here to do some squaring. All right, so my preferred squaring tool is the Bloc Loc and so I pressed mine first. If you like to use the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmers, obviously you would leave those closed and press at the end. And so we are going to square these to 2 and 1/2 inches. If you have not used the Bloc Loc before, the lettering typically goes to the background side of your block, whichever side you are not pressing your seam towards. Then I can just line this up on here and it's one 2 and a half is what I'm looking for, so we'll go ahead and trim off here and here. And then if you just rotate this and slide it down now this is perfectly square on this side. And I just have a tiny bit left to trim, just like so. It's beautiful and 2 and 1/2 inches.

Let's do that one more time because I have some of these ready to go already. So again the Bloc Loc is on my background, this is nesting into that seam. Spin, slide it down to the two and a half inch mark and trim. So I already have some of these made. You're going to square up all eight of them so they're ready to go and let's go ahead and assemble our corner unit.

So we're going to need two of these, one of our 2 and 1/2 inch print squares that we cut and one 2 and 1/2 inch background square for each corner. So I like to start with my print square and then I put my colors in towards the print and then we finish it off with our background square there. So we can just put these right sides together and take them both and sew on this side at the machine. So let's go ahead and do that. Just make sure everything stays lined up, and then we can follow this one in right behind it.

Okay now I can just open this up, make sure everything is still going the way that it should be. That looks great, so let's go ahead put those right sides together and we'll finish up our little four patch here. Just take a few stitches and then make sure that my seam is nesting in the middle here. Sew all the way to the end. All right, there we go. Let's give this a little press. Beautiful! Now I do want to point something out cuz I see comments about this a lot when you're making a unit like this. See this little pie piece here? This is your quarter inch seam allowance and people are often worried that they've messed up the block when you sew this onto the other block that will nest up perfectly and you will not lose your points. So this is exactly what you're looking for.

So you're going to make four of these. I have the other ones ready to go and then let's go ahead and move on to the next section, which are these blocks that finish up surrounding the outside.

So in order to do that you're going to take two matching 10 inch squares. So I have this print here, so pretty. We're just going to line those up nice and straight and we are going to subcut these. I have two stacked together, so every cut I make I'm going to get two. Just want to make sure it's not shifting on me, there we go. And we are going to cut these into 4 and 1/2 inch strips and then subcut into 4 and 1/2 inch squares and we need eight total. So let's just make sure this is all straight on my mat. That looks great. All right, there's our cut number one, set that aside and then four and a 1/2 again. And then this little bit is our waste. Now we can either stack these, that's what I usually like to do. Oops make sure you've got all four though and then we're going to turn and subcut these into our squares. So again just make sure everything is staying lined up, here we go. There's one, one more, and here's our waste. Okay so these are all ready to go.

So now for each one of these 4 and 1/2 inch squares, you are going to need two 2 and 1/2 inch background squares. And we are just going to be snowballing which means sewing corner to corner on the same side. So
we'll sew one, trim it and press it back, and then we'll add the other. So let's go ahead and take this to the machine. If you want to draw a line or press a line you can absolutely do that. I am just going to use my diagonal seam tape. So I line up that first side with my needle and this opposite side with the red line on on the tape, there we go, and then we can go ahead and trim off leaving our quarter inch seam, just like so. If you have a little nest, this is super handy for this step because now we're going to roll back that first corner and it's going to look like this. Then we can add in that second 2 and 1/2 inch square and see how it overlaps the first one? That's what we're looking for.

So we're going to sew point to point, again lining up with my needle and sewing straight down. All right, let's go ahead and trim that off as well, leaving just our quarter inch seam allowance. And then we can roll this one back. Tada! That is what that little unit looks like. You're going to repeat that eight times - I have most of these ready to go - and then you're going to sew them into sets of two just like this. And so I've got two here. We're going to put them right together and sew down one side so that we have four sets of two. All right, just press that open so it's ready to go for later. I will add it to my other three, so we have all four of those sets ready to go and we'll set that aside.

Now let's move on to the center. So for the middle you'll notice we have one 4 and 1/2 inch square and it's surrounded by these flying geese. So you can pick one of your 10 inch squares, subcut this down to 4 and a half and then you can actually use this in multiple blocks. So you can see I've used it here and here and you could use it up to four times obviously. So I have the middle ready to go and now let's move on to our flying geese units.

So for that you are also going to grab a 10-inch square obviously, and each one of these is actually going to be enough to make two of the middles. So again you can see I've used it here and here, so just keep that in mind. Ío to begin we are going to cut this down on one side so that it measures 10 by 9. So we'll just cut off this little outer inch and set it aside. Then we are going to spin this and we are going to cut it into 2 and 1/2 in strips all the way across the length of our rectangle. So we've got one, two, one more cut here. Whoops almost cut it too wide, there we go.

So then once we've done that, you can stack these up if you'd like and I'm going to spin it to make it easier on myself here. Just keep everything lined
up and we are going to cut these at four and a half which should be right in half of our 9 in strip. So there we go, they are ready to go. And so four of these are what you're going to need for the block. This is going to be for another block and so we are going to just pair these up now with our background squares. So here's my little stack of 2 and 1/2 inch background squares and so much like we did on our 4 and 1/2 inch square we are going to snowball the same side to create those flying geese units. So we'll sew corner to corner on one triangle, press it back and repeat that same process all four times. So let's go ahead and do that.

Here there's that first seam we're just going to trim off leaving that quarter inch, press it back and add the other side. So this is the exact same process that we did on that larger square, we're just doing it on a rectangle this time. Okay, all right we'll go ahead and press this back, here we go. And that is our little flying geese unit. You're going to repeat this four times and then we can start putting together our block.

So we're going to clear some of this out of the way. Here is our little
center, and then we are going to put a flying geese unit on either side, and
then on top and bottom of that I have taken a flying geese unit and just sewn a 2 and 1/2 in square to each side so let's go ahead and sew these to the middle and then we'll sew each of these rows top and bottom. So we can fold it like so just bring all of this over here, so it's close by for me to work, and we'll start putting this together.

Take a few stitches line it up, as we go bring this around to the other side just going to make sure everything is lined up the way that I want. So take
your time. Here I'm going to press these in towards the middle so that they'll nest with my other pieces just like so. And we can go ahead and
add our other units to each side. Okay, just check that, make sure everything's looking good. It looks great! We'll add this last piece to the other side and in the middle of our block will be complete.

All right, there we go, the middle of our block is done. Let's give it a good
press so it lays nice and flat, this side back as well. All right now let's bring it over here so you can see how the rest of this comes together. Here's the center and of course we're going to build out our other units just like so and then finish it off with our corner blocks. The print is going to go in towards the middle just like that. When you sew those together, your block is complete! I think it turned out so pretty. Like I said it is three across by three down with a 2 and 1/2 inch sashing in between. And as that first little border to just float those blocks around it finishes up at 56 inches square.

I hope you enjoyed this Bloom Quilt! I'll see you next time on At Home!