With St. Patrick’s day coming up, I thought maybe it will be fun to take a look at a different kind of Irish chain block. This one is a four patch and I’m going to make a 12 inch block. And also, you will see that this has some little four patch squares in it. And instead of cutting individual little squares, what I’m going to do is saw this together using a strip piece in method.
Hi! This is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and QuiltBlockLibrary.tv. Thanks for joining me and if you’re ready to get started sewing this Irish chain quilt block, let’s got to the sewing machine.
I’m always looking for ways to short cut the way I saw quilt blocks together and this is a perfect example of a shortcut method that you can use to make this piecing go a lot quicker. You maybe able to see and you’ll definitely be able to see in you're pattern that there are a bunch of this little four patches. And instead of cutting out individual squares, I’m going to saw these pieces together or this patches together as strips.
So what I’ve done is cut strips of the light and then the two different colors of green and I’m simply going to place this strips right sides together, and saw them together. Once they are sawed together, I’m going to press them open and put the seam allowances facing the solid color and then I will meet you over at the cutting table so that we can see how to cut this off. So that you can do the next step in getting this patches together.
Now I’ve got my two strip pieces together and you could see I’ve just got a light and a dark and a light and a dark and I’ve press the seam allowances toward the darker fabric. And that will make the patches go together quicker. So because my strips were two inches wide that I originally cut them, what I’m going to need to do is cut them across two inches so that they’re two inches long too.
Now I hit my little piles of patches that I’ve cut off and I’m going to carry this back to my sewing machine and saw them together into actual square four patches. Now looking at my pattern, I see that I’ve got to have the lights together and the darks together. So what I’m going to do is just pick up two of this light patches and then I’m going to put them right sides together and this are going to fit nicely together. The seams are going to nestled in really nicely and then I will just be able to saw my quarter seam allowance. And then I have all of this little square four patches finished.
These four patches are all finished and before I open them up and spread them around on my flannel board, what I’m going to do is saw this half squared triangles together that go in the corner and they’re pretty simple. I didn’t use any shortcut methods to saw this. I’m just using half square triangles that I’m going to place right sides together and simply saw along the bias.
Once I have all my half squared triangles sawed together I was ready to lay it out on my flannel board as I am going to saw the whole block together. And I always like to take a last check just to be sure that everything is laid out the way I want it to be. So now its time to saw the patches together, the first thing I’m going to do is saw this center unit together, so I will saw the triangles on each side and I will saw the triangles on the sides opposite each other together first and then I will add the ones on the opposite sides. These two sides are sawn and now I’m just going to add this second set of triangles onto the corners and then we’ll have a square in the center of this block.
Now we’ve got the center part down here and in order to saw this whole unit together, I’m going to need to saw this two patches and this two patches so that’s my next step. Now I’m ready to add these patches onto to the center. So then I will have my entire center piece done. But then I get the center pieces sawn together and I'm going to need to saw this rose together. So I’m just going to saw them pretty easily, just right sides together, so those patch together and then I will be ready to saw the rose together.
I’ve got this pairs sawn together on the top and the bottom so then I just need to saw the rest of the rose together. And we’ll be ready to finish up the block. Just two more seams and this block is going to be done. So I will start with sewing the top row one and then also the bottom row on. We got the top row so not here and now were ready to put the bottom row on and then this block will be finished.
Our Irish chain quilt block is all finished and ready to be sawn into a quilt. This is an example of looking at a block and seeing how you might be able to shortcut and shorten the time that it takes for you to saw a block together by using some strip piecing techniques. This is Penny Halgren from QuiltBlockLibrary.com and QuiltBlockLibrary.tv. If you are not already, there head on over to QuiltBlockLibrary.com and get your free download of this pattern. Thanks again for joining me and peaceful piecing.
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