How to Sew a Picket Fence Quilt Block

Often cultures are looking for a quilt block that’s really easy to sew. And this one fits the bill. This one is called “Picket Fence”.

Hi, this is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and QuiltBlockLibrary.tv. And today, I'm going to show you how to put this quilt block together. It has triangles, rectangles and squares. The pieces are relatively large so you’ll end up with just a few pieces in the block. And the thing that’s fun about this block is that when you set them side-by-side in a quilt, it makes a secondary pattern. So, my pieces are all ready to go. Let’s get started.

This quilt block basically has two different patches, one is a square surrounded by rectangles and the other is two half-squared triangles. So, what I've down is set out my patches here and the first thing I'm going to do is sew my half-squared triangles together. It's just a blue one and a lavender one. And I'm just going to sew across to make one big square.

Now for these, the square with the rectangles and this actually is another square. What I'm going to do is sew these as if I were sewing a block together basically. So, I'm going to put these right sides together and these right sides together and chain stitch them for both of the patches. Now, because I want the squares surrounded by these purple rectangles and squares, I chained sew them but I cut them apart in pairs. So now, I'm just going to fold this down and sew the seam across here and then I’ll end up with one of the corner patches.

Now, I have the four patches put together and I’m ready to sew the block together. What’s interesting about this particular block is that it looks like it should be a four-patched because it's got these four patches. But actually, it's considered a nine-patch because if you divide these, it actually is divided into thirds. So, this rectangle is one-third of the whole block.

In any case, the next thing I'm going to do is just fold this over and sew these two blocks together. Now, the top two patches and the bottom two patches are sewn together. So, all I’ll need to do is sew the center seam and this block is done. You can see how easy it is and it makes a nice big block. So, it would make an easy quilt to make.

This picket fence quilt block is all finished and ready to go. This was really easy. It went together pretty quickly and because the seams are quite large, you can make some nice big blocks and with very few seams. It also looks to me like it might make a great back quarter quilt. And possibly, a nice jelly roll quilt or maybe some combination of those. So, I might try that at some point in time.

Thanks for joining me. This is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and QuiltBlockLibrary.tv. If you’re not already over there, head on over to QuiltBlockLibrary.com and pick up your free download of this pattern and check out all the other patterns that are available on that site. Until next time, peaceful piecing.


Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services