Hi I’m Jenny from Missouri Star Quilt Company, welcome to our Beginner Block series!
Today we’re going to learn how to make a four patch; this is an easy and versatile
block that you’ll really enjoy because you’ll feel success right away.
So were going to use a strip of fabric that we’ve cut two and a half inches wide.
Now for the purpose of making this block you can cut it any width you’d like, but for
today’s demonstration we’re going to use a two and a half inch strip.
Because for one reason the fabric companies are coming out with two and a half strip they
call a Jelly Roll, it is one fabric from every fabric in the line and they are already pre
cut in two and a half inch strips.
All you have to do is lay them down and you are going to have to sub cut them into two
and a half inch squares. So we’re going to sub cut this and then we end up with four
squares to make a four patch.
We’re going to take these patches which are going to be made out of contrasting fabric,
so you can see how the different patches look together, we’re going to lay them out in
this order and you can see how you’re going to have a four patch.
Of course we need to sew it together so we’ll fold these pieces onto each other and we’re
going to line them up and you’ll sew a quarter of an inch right along here.
Set your presser foot on the sewing machine a quarter of an inch and make sure that everything
you sew stays that same quarter of an inch.
In quilting the seams always stay a quarter of an inch. That makes everything line up
perfectly in the end, you don’t need to back stitch you just sew through because all
these little corners will be caught in the corner of another block. So lets go to the
sewing machine and we will sew these a quarter of an inch.
Now we are ready to sew our four patch together and we will set our machine at a quarter of
an inch. On this particular machine I have a quarter of an inch sewing foot or presser
foot so its easy for me but if you need to measure that out you can put your needle down
and measure a quarter of an inch and place a piece of tape so you're always in the right
place .
This is called chain sewing so, you piece them together in a chain and when they’re
done you pull them all out of the sewing machine at once and then you take them over to your
ironing board.
Now here we are ready to iron, you want to snip in between your chain no matter how many
of them there are and were actually go to lay these dark side up. We will use the
iron, press those seams so that it sets them, then we are going to flip up the dark side
and we will press that to the dark, just like that.
And then the next one we will also press to the dark. If you always press to the dark,
when you put your four patch together it will lay real nicely against each other.
So now we again are going to turn them and see how that lays together and the seems are
going in either direction and then we just join them like that and now we will take them
to the sewing machine.
For those of you who are beginning you may want to stick a pin right in between the seam
here just to hold them down, I’ve been doing this for a very long time so I see that these
match up correctly and I will set it up under here again using a quarter of an inch and
away we go.
Now we’ll trim that off and we will be ready to see our final four patch. Now we are going
to set our seem and then we’ll open this up and as you can see we have a perfectly
matched four patch.
Now you can use the four patch for all different kinds of things I like to use them if you
set them together with another block they almost make an Irish chain looking design.
So now that you have your finished four patch it can be used for all kind of things, we’ll
show you an example of a four patch that is used in a table runner that just makes a lovely
pattern and it’s very easy.
When you use a four patch and squares of the same size and you put them side by side it
will come very quickly and you can make a nice table runner.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning how to make a four patch and come see us next time and
happy quilting.