|

How to Strip Piece Nine-Patch (9 Patch) Quilt Blocks

Like this? Click or tap to share it

blankThis week’s easy quilt block is made of nine small fabric squares arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The graphic above shows the two kinds of nine-patch blocks you can make from two fabrics. That’s what I will show you how to do in this post.

Supply List 

Here’s what you will need:

  • Fabric strips in two colors, one lighter and one darker
  • Rotary cutter
  • See-through cutting ruler
  • Cotton or polyester thread in a neutral color like beige or pale grey. I use 40- or 50-weight cotton thread from Aurifil.

You will also need your sewing machine, of course. If you have one, a 1/4″ quilting foot makes it easier to sew accurate seams. If not, I recommend making yourself a homemade 1/4″ seam guide with painter’s tape.

Sizing Your Block and Fabric Strips 

Before you start cutting, you need to decide how big you want the finished block to be. This determines how wide to cut your strips. This chart shows you how wide to cut your strips to make blocks of various sizes:

Table showing how wide to cut fabric strips for various size 9-patch quilt blocks

Cutting the Strips

For each block, you will need to cut three strips each of the light and dark fabrics (or buy precut strips called jelly rolls at the local quilt shop.) blankThese instructions assume that you cut the strips for these blocks across the full width of your fabric, from selvage to selvage. The table below shows you about how many finished blocks you can make from each set of six strips. (The precise number you will get depends on the usable width of the fabrics, which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.)

Table showing how many 9 patch blocks a set of fabric strips will make.

Sewing the Fabric Strips into Strip Sets

After you cut the strips, you will sew them into two sets of three strips each. One strip set has two dark strips on the outside and a light strip in the center, like this: blank The other strip set has two light strips on the outside and a dark strip in the center, like this: blankHere’s how to sew the strip sets together:

  1. Lay one strip of light fabric and one of dark fabric with right sides together.
  2. Sew along one long side of the paired strips with a scant ¼” seam, then press the seam toward the darker fabric.
  3. Sew a third strip to the strip set so the light and dark strips alternate. It’s good to sew in the opposite direction than you did the first time. This helps keep the strip set straight. blank
  4. Press the seam toward the darker fabric.
  5. Sew the second set of strips together, pressing the seams toward the darker fabric. blank

Cross-Cutting the Strip Sets

Next, you will cut the strip sets into smaller units.

  1. Lay the two strip sets with right sides together so the seams nest. If you pressed all the seam allowances toward the darker fabric, the strips should fit together neatly. blank
  2. Use your rotary cutter and a cutting ruler to cut sub-units from the paired strip units. blank
    The sub-units should be the same width as the original strips. For example, if the fabric strips were 1½” wide, cut the sub-units 1½” wide.  The strips in these blocks were 2-1/2″ wide, so I cut the strip sets into 2-1/2″ sub-units. blank

Assembling the Strip Sets into Nine Patch Blocks

The last step is to sew the sub-cut units together.

  1. Count the sub-units and set aside one third of them. You will use those to complete the blocks later.
  2. Sew together the remaining two thirds of the nested sub-units, joining each pair along one long side.
    blank
  3. Use chain piecing to save thread and speed up the stitching. Press the seams to one side.
  4. Separate the last third of the sub-cut units so they are no longer nested together.

Sewing Positive or Negative Nine Patch Blocks

At this point, you can choose to make two different kinds of nine patch blocks — positive blocks, where the darker fabric anchors the four corners, or negative blocks, where the lighter fabric anchors the corners. This photo shows a negative block on the left and a positive block on the right. blankSome quilt patterns call for positive nine-patch blocks, some call for negative blocks, and some call for both. Once you decide whether you want to make a positive or negative block, you can sew the final sub-unit onto the block. Here’s what to do.

  1. Sew the last sub-unit to the larger section. Position the units like this to make a positive block: blankand like this to make a negative block. blank
  2. Press the blocks and square them up. They are now ready to use in a quilt.

Here are the two blocks that came from the strip sets you saw in this tutorial. Here’s the positive block: blank

And here’s the negative block: blank

And to inspire you to use nine patch blocks in a quilt of your own, here’s a nine-patch quilt I made a few years ago. I got the pattern from one of my favorite easy quilt books, Judy Sisneros’ 9-Patch Pizzazz. I wish I’d taken better photos of this quilt! blank

 

 

Similar Posts

18 Comments

  1. Question: For 9-patch strip-piecing, can I cut the outer strips at 8 inches and the middle strips at 6 inches? Thank you

  2. Fun! Thanks for this easy listings of finished sizes. Now I can use one of the many jelly rolls I have, and cut some muslin/neutral strips for the ‘other’ rows. I needed an easy project as summer heat has left me unable to plan anything! Time to get busy.

    1. Hi Katie,

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you are talking about making string quilt blocks and want to get the center strip to run diagonally across the foundation square from corner to corner. The only real secret I know of is to make sure your center strips reach past both corners of the foundation square. The actual seam stitching down the first strip won’t be in the center of the strip, but will be on one side of the strip, 1/4″ from the edge. This photo shows how to lay out the center strip, face up, and put the next strip face down before sewing on one edge: blank

  3. A wonderful tutorial and explained in simple terms that a beginner like me wants to get down to my sewing room right away! Thanks a lot.

  4. Dear Quilting Ladies. Hello 🙂
    I started off on amazon then got sidetracked to looking your website up. I would like to purchase the Quilting for beginners book but don’t quite understand the shipping fees, I will sort it out. It seems a very informative site for beginners like myself and I am looking forward to reading your blog etc. I have just read this above. It is definitely what I need, some of the quilts I have seen about are truly masterpieces, I aspire to doing Barcelona Quilting. Thank you beautiful Ladies for this site. God bless
    Sonia in UK

  5. I have four different materials to use in a nine patch quilt. I would like it to be 12″ sos. 3across by four down. Should the strips be 4 1/2 or 5″ ?

    1. I’m not sure I understand your block, Cindy. If it is a block that’s three across and four down, that seems to make it a 12-patch, not a nine-patch. Did I get that right?

    2. 5 inch blocks will give you a 12 1/2 inch unfinished block and a 12 inch finished block. Not sure what you mean by SOS. 3×4 will give you a 12×16 block

    1. Micheline, here’s the calculation for a 5″ finished nine-patch block. The block measures 5-1/2″ inches before you sew it into a quilt, with 1/4″ of seam allowance on each side. Each side of the nine-patch block has three squares, so each strip in the block needs to be 5.5 divided by 3, + 1/4″ of seam allowance on each side of each strip. (5.5″/3 + 0.5″). If you do the calculation, each individual strip needs to be 2.33″. This is hard to cut accurately if your ruler is marked in 1/8″ increments. If it’s at all possible, I suggest you make your nine-patch blocks 6″ finished. The strips for a 6″ block need to be 2-1/2″, which is much easier to measure and cut.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.