How to Sew the Iowa Barn Quilt Block

House blocks and barbed blocks are always popular with quilters and they do present some challenges in terms of sewing them together. Hi, I’m Penny Halgren from quiltblocklibrary.com. And I posted a pattern called, Iowa barn block and I got several quilters who said, “How do you sew that together?” So, I thought I would take a chance and opportunity today and sew it together for you. I’m ready to get started so let’s go to the sewing machine. You can also see that these blocks are good for using scrap fabric too because they’re a bunch of different colors and small pieces of each color. So, what I’m going to do first here is sew these three pieces together because those are like really obvious. So, I’m just going to put these right sides together, I'm going to sew this seam and then sew that seam together. Now that I have these three sewn together, it‘s pretty easy to just lift this up and sew this together and then we’ll have this one entire section put together, that’s the barn. Now, with our barn sewn together, I could finish this little operation here but I think what I’m going to do is pick up this corner and because it’s pretty easy so I’m going to sew these triangles together and they’re not exactly matching. The shapes don’t match exactly but you can still line up your—is here and then we’ll open them up and finish sewing the patch together. These two are sewn together and you can see I left them hooked together with the stitching so I’m just going to open them up and then put them right sides together and sew the seam down the center here. Now that I've got this section done, the next step I’m going to do is sew the top on this and now I have this whole side finished. The next step here is to sew this sky piece onto the roof. The way this is set up, there’s really no way to avoid doing a set in seam kinds of things. So, the one that I’m going to do first is I’m going to take my roof and fold it and sew it onto the side of the barn. Now this, instead of sewing all the way to the end here, I’m going to sew within a quarter of an inch here and then I’m going to put this square inside. So now, I’ve got my roof on and what I’m going to do is sew this onto the roof part first and I want to have my roof standing out so I’m going to put my seam allowances behind the roof piece on both sides and then I’ll pin this and sew this part of it first. I’m going to stitch too within a quarter of an inch of the seam allowance here so that I’ll have the ability to sew this down the side. So now, we have the rest of this and what I’m going to do is sew this unit together and then attach it to the side. So, the first thing I’m going to do, this is going to look very strange but I’m going to sew this onto here just down the seam. I’ve got this little triangle sewn on and what I want to do because I’m going to need to attach this in kind of a set in seam style as well, I did leave a quarter of an inch seam allowance open there. So, the next step is just to sew this part of it on and when you sew this seam allowance, it can be sewn all the way too and because you’re going to sew this on together which is one strip and then you’re going to angle this to the side. So I am going to—I guess it doesn’t really matter which side gets sewn first so I’m just going to fold it up this way and attach the barn to the sky first and then I’ll come down and attach the barn to the side wall. And again, it’s sewing your set in seam You should be careful to match this seam with where these two pieces come together in order to make your nice angle. So now, I’ve go this guy sewn on to the top and I just need to turn this around and stitch down this side which is going to be pretty easy. And as you sew these together, the rest of your block, there’s going to be a kind of strange angles but just concentrate on your seam and making sure that your —are just lined up and the ending pieces are lined up too. You’re going to have a little quarter of an inch tip that extends beyond the end of this barn for the silo and then once you unfold it, it’s going to all line up. So, there it is we have all of our pieces sewn together and yup, there were some set in seams but by the time you sew this block together, you’ll be an expert at set in seams. The construction on an Iowa barn block is finished and here it is. It’s all pressed and ready to be included in a quilt. School houses, houses and barns do present some additional challenges over just regular piece of blocks but I really think that they’re worth it because they do create some quilts that are very fun and touch the heart in terms of some seams that you can make with them. Thank you very much for joining me. This is Penny Halgren from quiltblocklibrary.com. And if you’re not already at quiltblocklibrary.com, be sure to head on over there so that you can get your free down download at this Iowa barn pattern. Thanks for joining me. See you next time, peaceful piecing!