FREE :: Delft Inspired Blue Brick Quilt Tutorial with June Tailor Shape Cut Plus Cutting Guide

The team at the Sewing Quarter presented me with several prints from the Blue Dream range. It’s a new range of fabrics designed by Dianna don Francisco for Henri Glass.  I was told ‘see what you can come up with’ and ‘keep it simple’. The prints are really gorgeous and they really looked like Delft pottery or even the tiles you might find decorating homes around the mediterranean.

For me the only option was to offset the blues with some brilliant white and to do my best to hero the beautiful blues and those gorgeous designs.

When I design quilts I use a combination of pencil and paper (and a calculator!) and Electric Quilt 8. I’d love to say that one day I shall become paperless, but to be honest the way that my brain works, I need to scribble things down, cross them out, draw them all over again! So I sketched some ideas and eventually settled on a brick style quilt and got to work in EQ8.

On Sewing Quarter on the 28th of March 2019 I run through a demonstration of how I cut out the fabrics and how I pull together the quilt top. Check out a link to the show below….

In this brief tutorial I’ll give you two different ways of cutting out your fabrics and detail on how I constructed the quilt top.

Finished Size: 55″ x 66″

You Will Need:

• 5 half metres of fabric (the quilt top uses approx 2.5m of fabric in total)
• 1.2m of background (white) fabric
• Wadding/Batting
• 40cm/15″ binding fabric
• Backing Fabric

Tools

• Rotary Cutter and Mat
• 24″ x 6″ ruler OR June Tailor Shape Cut Plus
• Iron and board

Here are the instructions for cutting out your fabrics using a 24″ ruler (if you have a June Tailor Shape Cut plus, scroll down to see the next set of instructions)

From Each Print:

Three (3) 5.5″ wide WOF strips

• Take two strips and sub-cut into five (5) 7.5″ rectangles
• Take the third strip and sub-cut into four (4) 7.5″ rectangles AND two (2) 4″ rectangles

see below for a diagram that shows the above cuts. You may however like to cut a few extra rectangles to give you a bit more flexibility when playing with layout.

Once you have finished cutting all five (5) of your print fabrics you will have the following:

• Seventy (70) 5.5″ x 7.5″ rectangles (only 68 required*)
• Ten (10) 5.5″ x 4″ rectangles (only 8 required*)

*the extra rectangles come in handy when playing around with the layout in terms of colour placement and value

From the Background (white) fabric:

Cut twenty nine (29) 1.5″ strips

• Take eleven (11) strips and sub cut into seventy two (72) 5.5″ rectangles
• The remaining eighteen (18) strips are put to one side for sashing and borders

Have you got a June Tailor Shape Cut plus? Well, if so these instructions are for you! If not then you can either follow the instructions above for cutting with a 24″ ruler or watch the demo on Sewing Quarter and you never know you might just decide to by one!

Preparing Your Fabric

• Fold fabric selvage to selvage
• Fold again in the same direction, bringing the first fold up to meet the selvage. I actually like to lay the fold a little distance down from the selvage to make sure that I have folded it straight! You will have four (4) layers of fabric.
• Lay the ruler so that the raw edges to the left of your piece extend a little to the left of the 0 cutting channel, and the solid 0 horizontal line sits along the horizontal fold of your fabric.

The first cut you make will be along the 0 channel to remove ragged edges and to square up your fabric.

From Each Print:

Prepare your fabric as above and cut at the following points (marked with arrows):

• 0″
• 5.5″
• 11″
• 16.5″

This will create three (3) WOF strips, each 5.5″ wide

cut 5.5″ WOF strips

Open out the fabric so it is now just in two layers (rather than four).

Layer the three 5.5″ wide strips on top of each other, lining up the selvages on the left hand side and the folded edges at the other. There will be 6 layers in total.

Cut at the following points:

• 0″ (to remove the selvages)
• 7.5″
• 15″

This will yield 12 rectangles measuring 5.5″ x 7.5″

sub-cut two of the the 5.5″ WOF strips

From the remaining fabric take 2 pieces and lay out flat, one on top of the other.

Cut at the following points:

• 0″
• 7.5″
• 11.5″

This will yield 2 rectangles measuring 5.5″ x 7.5″ and 2 rectangles measuring 5.5″ x 4″

sub-cut the third 5.5″ WOF strips

Once you have finished cutting all five (5) of your print fabrics you will have the following:

• Seventy (70) 5.5″ x 7.5″ rectangles (only 68 required*)
• Ten (10) 5.5″ x 4″ rectangles (only 8 required*)

*the extra rectangles come in handy when playing around with the layout in terms of colour placement and value

From the Background (white)

Prepare your fabric as above (folded into 4 layers) and cut at the following points repeating until you have 29 strips:

• 0″
• 1.5″
• 3″
• 4.5″
• 6″
• 7.5″
• 9″
• 10.5″
• 12″
• 13.5″
• 15″
• 16.5″
• 18″

cut twenty nine (29) 1.5″ WOF strips

Take eleven (11) of the strips and open out so that they are folded in half only (2 layers). Cut at the following points:

• 0″ (to remove the selvages)
• 5.5″
• 11″
• 16.5″

You may like to cut from several strips at a time, either layered up or placed side by side. 

Fold out the remaining parts of the 11 strips so that the fabric lays flat and cut again at 5.5″.

This will yield seventy seven (77) 55.” x 1.5″ strips, you will only need 75.  I cut a few extra to chain piece with some of the extra print rectangles to give me a bit more flexibility when deciding on layout.

sub-cut eleven (11) of the 1.5″ WOF strips

Save the remaining eighteen (18) 1.5″ WOF strips for later to create the sashing and borders.

Chain Piecing the Rectangles

Take all of the print rectangles, both the 7.5″ and five (5) of the 4″. Join a 5.5″ background strip to one short end of each one. You’ll find it quicker to chain piece and you’ll use less thread! Press towards the print/larger rectangle.

Once complete the units should measure as follows:

• Large – 5.5″ x 8.5″
• Small – 5.5″ x 5″

Layout

The quilt is made up of 9 columns as you can see in the diagram.

If you want a scrappy quilt, just skip this step and go straight to piecing the columns!

If you want to plan the placement of your fabrics then lay them all out on the floor or a large table.

Have a look at your fabrics and decide on your layout. I tried to avoid two of the same print next to each other and tried to get a good even spread of values i.e. not having too many dark or light prints clustered together.

You’ll see that there are four (4) of the 5.5″ x 4″ rectangles at the lower edge of four of the columns. These four rectangles do not have a background strip attached to them.

If you have cut the extras as listed above you will have a few left over at this point.

I like to label the columns so I don’t lose track of where I am!

Piecing the Columns

Join the units to create each column. Press towards the print/larger rectangle.

If you have chain pieced the columns separate them, but keep them labelled.

Making and adding the Sashing and Borders

Take the remaining eighteen (18) 1.5″ background strips and join them all end to end to make one really long strip. Press seams to one side.

Take each column in turn and add a background strip to the right hand long edge to create sashing. Trim the background strip to size as you go. It will measure approx 66.5″ long. Press seams towards the sashing.

Attach a strip to the left hand edge of column one.

Join each of the columns together and press seams towards the sashing.

Sew a strip to the top and bottom of the columns, again cutting as you go.

Making a Quilt Sandwich

Cut your wadding/batting slightly larger than your quilt top. Cut your backing fabric slightly larger again.

Make a quilt sandwich and baste as required

Quilting

Quilt your quilt sandwich as required. For this quilt I used a decorative stitch on the vertical sashing strips and around the outside edge

Binding

From your binding fabric cut six (6) WOF strips. I like to cut my binding strips at 2.5″ wide, but caut more narrow if you prefer. Join the strips with 45 degree seams and press open. Press the strip in half along its length and attach to your quilt using your preferred method.

Thanks for stopping by to read my tutorial on how to make this Delft Inspired Blue Brick Quilt. I would love to know if you decide to make one! Don’t forget to watch back the Sewing Quarter episode on YouTube to pick up any other hints and tips I may have shared on the show.

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