Partial Seams In Quilt Blocks

By Rose Smith

This quilt block is known as the Bright Hopes quilt block.  It seems appropriate for the first month of the year but it is also interesting because you need to sew a partial seam during its construction.

At first sight it looks like a log cabin variation but when you look more closely you’ll notice that all the logs around the white square are rectangles where normally two of them would be squares.

To make a 6” Bright Hopes quilt block you will need one 2.1/2” square in a light colour and four 4.1/2” by 2.1/2” rectangles in a progression from light to dark.

Place the white square on the grey rectangle with right sides together. 

a point half way down the right hand edge of the white square and sew a seam from the top to that marked point. 

This will partially connect the two pieces.

Place the black rectangle across the grey and white fabric pieces and sew along the top edge using a ¼” seam.

Place the red rectangle (the second darkest fabric) on the black and white edge of the quilt block with right sides together and sew in place.

There now just remains the brown rectangle to attach. 

Sew this across the red and white edge. 

You now need to join the brown rectangle to the grey rectangle. 

This is why the first seam (white to grey) was only a partial seam. 

It is simple now to fold the grey rectangle across the white and brown and complete the seam.  That’s the Bright Hopes quilt block complete without a single inset seam. 

You can join several of these quilt blocks together by placing them all facing the same way and it gives you a lovely woven effect, but by rotating the blocks you can achieve some designs that look quite complex but have in fact been very easy to make.

Rose Smith is passionate about quilting and likes to share her quilting ideas through tutorials and free quilt patterns on her website: Learn How to Quilt

© 2011-, Penny Halgren. This article courtesy of http://www.How-To-Quilt.com. You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.