Inverted Block - Quilt tutorial

Today I am going to show you the first of two boy quilts.  Again, like the girls, I wanted them to match (since they share a room), but be different since they like to have their own identity. 

I started by picking out the fabric.  The two grey fabrics will be used in both quilts.

Step one is to cut your fabric.  I chose to begin with 9.5" squares.  The finished block for this first tutorial will end up 8.5".  The nice thing about this tutorial is you can begin with whatever size block suits your fancy!

Now that's what I call a stack of blocks!

For one quilt, I used 30 blocks of the striped grey (main fabric), and 10 each of my two blues, and solid grey.

Now you will take and stack up a few blocks at a time - Do however many you feel comfortable cutting at a time.  I chose to do four.

Your first cut will be a 3 inch strip on the side of the block.

I would like to mention here to let your creativeness run wild, if you want your center block to be bigger, or smaller, just adjust the strips accordingly.

Next, do the same thing on the other side.

Now, taking only the center strip, cut a 3" wide strip off the bottom.

And the top.

Then just continue on cutting until you have a nice stack to take to your machine.  You can do all at once or a few at a time.  Whatever you want!

Now if you're not careful, this can get a little tricky.  Remember my main fabric (striped grey)?  I will have this fabric in every block.  It will either be the border, or the center square.

Also, I will note, that I was very careful with the train material.  If you have a patterned fabric, be sure to keep it facing the right way.

First grab your center block, and grabbing the opposite fabric from your top strip stack, sew them together right sides together with a 1/4" seam allowance. Like so.

I like to just feed mine all on through.

Then cut and press all at once.  Again, however you like to do it, is fine by me!

I am a visual person, so I like to put them right back where they belong in the layout!

Next, repeat that step with the bottom strip.

And you should now look something like this.

Now, You guessed it, You will do the sides.

One more to go!

Beautiful!

Now Trim them up!

And Lay it out.

Play with it a bit, see your options.  I chose to have the main fabric alternate with the others.  but there are many different possibilities.

I liked the look of the blocks, after doing the girls, they just seemed more boyish, shall we say.

Hopefully I have inspired you to get cooking on a project of your own!

I will keep you posted with my progress.  I am still deciding what to do with the green one, so stay tuned for part two!

Happy Sewing!
~Corrie