You sew four ten inch squares together. Then you cut them apart.
The first time you do it, your hand hesitates over the rotary cutter. Slicing through a seam you have just pressed feels like undoing your own work, and everything careful piecing has taught you says stop.
Cut anyway. What comes back is a block with a small four patch floating at the centre and a ring of colour turning around it, and nobody who sees the finished quilt guesses it began as four squares and two straight cuts in each direction.
That is the disappearing four patch, and Four Patch Flip is one of the tidiest versions of it. Designed by Robert Kaufman Fabrics, it finishes at 49 inches square, uses 36 ten inch squares, and the pattern PDF is free.
Here is the whole method, including the two places where blocks go wrong.
What a disappearing four patch actually is
A four patch is the first block most quilters ever sew. Two squares, two more squares, one seam across the middle. Nothing to it.
A disappearing 4 patch takes that finished block, cuts it into nine pieces, rotates four of them, and sews the whole thing back together. The original four patch stops being readable. What replaces it looks pieced by someone with far more patience than the block actually asked for.
Four Patch Flip builds its four patch from four ten inch squares, which makes it unusually large. Once the quarter inch seams are taken out, the block measures 19-1/2 inches square. That size is the point. It is what allows nine useful pieces to come out of one block instead of four.
What you need for the Four Patch Flip quilt
The pattern is written around pre-cut ten inch squares, and each square is left uncut for block assembly. Nothing is trimmed before it is sewn.
- 36 ten inch squares, grouped into nine stacks. Each stack holds two pairs, so four squares in total.
- Six strips 2-1/4 inches by width of fabric for the binding, which is about half a yard.
- 3-1/4 yards for the backing and batting.
- Width of fabric is taken as at least 40 inches throughout.
- Quarter inch seam allowances unless the pattern says otherwise.
- Seam allowances pressed open unless otherwise noted.
The original quilt pairs a print with a solid in every stack, and the sample is sewn in The Wild Bunch flannel with flannel solids. The pattern also gives a second route. In the Park colorstory the pairs are a print with a contrasting print instead of a solid, which matters if you are working from one pre-cut pack rather than buying yardage in six colours.
That second route is the one to know about. A pack like our 40 piece pack of 10 inch squares in the Urban Liberty collection holds 20 designs with two of each, which is 20 ready made pairs before you have decided anything. You need 36 squares, and the pack gives you 40. There is more choice in our layer cakes if you want a different mood.
Step one, sew the 19-1/2 inch four patch
Take one stack of four squares. Sew them into a four patch the ordinary way, two squares in the top row, two in the bottom, then one long seam joining the rows.
Press the row seams towards the darker fabric. Press the final block seam open. The block should measure 19-1/2 inches square.
Measure it. Do not skip this. Every cut that follows is taken from the seams of this block, so a four patch that came out at 19-1/4 will hand you nine pieces that all miss by an eighth, and you will not find out until you are trimming.
Repeat until you have nine of them.
Step two, the cut that makes the four patch disappear
This is the part people write to us about, so let us take the objection head on. You are about to cut through two seams you just sewed. It is deliberate, it is not wasteful, and every piece you cut gets used.
The measurement is the same in both directions. Cut 3 inches away from either side of the horizontal seam, and 3 inches away from either side of the vertical seam. Four cuts in total, two across and two down.
Because the block is 19-1/2 inches and the seams run through the middle, those cuts leave you with columns of 6-3/4 inches, 6 inches and 6-3/4 inches, and rows in exactly the same measurements. Nine pieces come out of it:
- One centre piece, 6 inches by 6 inches, which is already a small four patch.
- Four edge pieces of 6 inches by 6-3/4 inches, each with a seam running through it. The pattern calls these units A, B, C and D.
- Four corner pieces of 6-3/4 inches square, each cut from a single fabric.
Keep the pieces where they fall on the cutting mat. It costs nothing now and saves confusion in two steps' time.
A cut this long through a pressed seam is also where a tired blade shows itself, dragging instead of slicing and pushing the top layer out of line. If yours is skating, our rotary cutters are worth a look before you start a run of nine blocks.
Step three, trim all nine pieces to 6 inches square
Every piece is trimmed to 6 inches by 6 inches. The centre four patch is already there, which is why the pattern tells you to leave it alone. The four edge units lose three quarters of an inch from one side. The four corners lose three quarters from two sides.
Nobody puts this step on the front of a pattern, and it is the step that decides whether your block finishes at 17 inches or at something you have to fudge later. Thirty six pieces per block, nine blocks, and the trimming is where a ruler that grips earns its keep. Our rulers are here if yours has started to slide.
Step four, rotate four units and rebuild the block
Now the flip that gives the pattern its name. Rotate each of the A, B, C and D units 180 degrees. The corners stay as they are. The centre stays as it is. Only the four edge units turn.
That single turn is the whole effect. Each edge unit carries a seam with print on one side and solid on the other, so turning it swaps which half sits against the centre. The straight lines of the original four patch break, and a cross shape appears around the middle.
Sew the three rows together, pressing the seams to one side and alternating direction every other row. Then sew the rows together, nesting the seams as you go, and press the final seams open.
The block should measure 17 inches square, unfinished. Three pieces at 6 inches make 18 inches of fabric, and the two joining seams take half an inch, so 17 is the number to check against.
Repeat to create nine blocks.
From nine blocks to a 49 inch quilt
Arrange the nine blocks in three rows of three, watching where the prints and the solids fall so the quilt reads as balanced rather than crowded on one side. The pattern's own layout is worth copying the first time.
Sew the blocks into rows, pressing the seams to one side and alternating every other row. Then join the rows, nesting the seams.
The quilt top is done, and it measures 49 inches by 49 inches. Baste, quilt and bind, and the six binding strips you cut at the start are waiting for you.
Free layer cake quilt patterns and how this one uses a 10 inch pack
Ten inch squares carry more design in them than any other pre-cut. A charm square gives you a five inch decision. A ten inch square gives you a whole block, and in this pattern four of them give you nine pieces.
Most free layer cake quilt patterns ask you to cut the squares down before you sew. This one does the opposite. The squares go into the machine whole, and the only cutting happens after the seam is in. That is why it works so well from a single pack, and why the maths is forgiving: 40 squares in, 36 used, four left over for a label, a pocket or the back.
One honest note. We do not carry flannel, and we do not carry solids in ten inch squares, so the exact fabrics in the Robert Kaufman sample are not something we can put in front of you. The Park route, print against contrasting print, is the one our packs are built for, and it is the pattern's own suggestion rather than ours.
Download the free disappearing four patch pattern
Four Patch Flip pattern PDF, free from Robert Kaufman
Six pages, with the cutting diagram, the rotation diagram and the full quilt layout, plus fabric charts for all three colourways. It is for individual use, not for resale.
If this is your first pattern of this kind, the beginner quilt patterns page groups the ones with the least fussy cutting. Everything free we have gathered lives on the free quilt patterns page.
Three more worth a look while you are here. Silverstone is another ten square friendly design with a calmer palette. Color Cascade keeps the four patch visible instead of hiding it and runs the colour across the quilt in a gradient, which makes an interesting comparison. And the diagonal disappearing 4 patch sets the same idea on point.
Before you start
There is a particular kind of nerve involved in cutting up something you have just sewn well.
I think that is why this block stays popular. It asks you to trust a set of instructions past the point where they stop making sense, and then it hands you something better than what you gave up. Most of the good things I have made started that way.
Sew one block before you cut nine. Measure the 19-1/2. Trim honestly to 6 inches. The rest of it takes care of itself.
Marbelia Fernandes
The Fabric Hut Co-Founder
P.S. If you have made a disappearing four patch before and pressed the centre seam a different way, tell us in the comments. There is more than one right answer there, and I would rather hear yours than guess.
