Stand back from this one and you see a lattice. Pale diamonds floating in rows, a grid of coral and gray holding them in place, long diagonal bars running off the edges as if the design carried on past the binding. Step closer and the lattice disappears, because none of it is where you thought it was. There is no sashing. There are no borders. The whole thing is thirty-six blocks sewn edge to edge, and every line you were admiring crosses from one block into the next.
Fractured Fragments is a free geometric quilt pattern from Robert Kaufman, 72 inches square, and the cover is honest about the level: Pattern Level, Experienced Intermediate, with the line "I know the ropes and would like to test my skills!" There are no set-in seams and no curves. What there is instead is volume. Thirty-six blocks in eight styles, built from 1260 pieces, and a placement chart that has to be followed square by square or the picture never appears.
The pattern was designed by Robert Kaufman Fabrics and photographed in Fragmental, a collection by Angela Walters, alongside several of their linen blend solids. It is shown in a colorstory called Salmon, with Sunflower and Park versions at the back of the file. The rest of their free patterns live at robertkaufman.com.
Pattern details
- Pattern name: Fractured Fragments
- Brand: Robert Kaufman
- Designer: Robert Kaufman Fabrics
- Finished size: 72" x 72"
- Size category: Throw
- Difficulty: Experienced Intermediate
- Block: Eight block styles, 12 1/2" unfinished, pieced in quarters
- Technique: Half square triangles, quarter square triangles, template piecing
- Colorway shown: Salmon, with Sunflower and Park alternates
- Fat quarter friendly: No
- Jelly roll friendly: No
- Layer cake friendly: No
- Charm pack friendly: No
Download the free Fractured Fragments quilt pattern PDF
Eight block styles, and only one block to learn
The phrase "eight different blocks" is what makes this pattern look harder than it is, and it is worth taking apart before you start cutting. The eight styles are not eight constructions. They are one construction with the fabrics placed differently, which is why the pattern gives a single exploded diagram and lets it serve all eight.
That one block is built in quarters, and the quarters are not identical either. The upper left and lower right each hold a 4 1/2 inch square with pieced units sewn to two of its sides. The upper right and lower left are made exactly the same way as each other: two triangles joined into a small square, two more triangles added, then a large triangle on top and the unit trimmed to 4 1/2 inches. Join the quarters into halves, join the halves, and the block measures 12 1/2 inches.
Lay the four quarters out before you sew and you notice something that makes the whole quilt easier to hold in your head. The block has half turn symmetry. Rotate it 180 degrees and it lands on itself. So does the finished quilt, as the placement chart shows, which means the second half of the layout is the first half upside down.
The piece count, checked against the cutting list
We counted every shape in the pattern against what the cutting instructions produce, because a quilt this size is where a number quietly goes missing. Nothing is missing. Here is what one block takes, and what that comes to across thirty-six blocks.
- Shape A, one large half square triangle: 1 per block, 36 in the quilt
- Shape B, the template piece: 2 per block, 72
- Shape C, 2 1/2 inch squares: 14 per block, 504
- Shape D, 2 7/8 inch half square triangles: 12 per block, 432
- Shape E, quarter square triangles: 2 per block, 72
- Shape F, 4 1/2 inch squares: 2 per block, 72
- Shape G, 4 7/8 inch half square triangles: 2 per block, 72
Thirty-five pieces per block. 1260 pieces in the quilt, and each of those seven totals is reached by adding up contributions from two, three or even six different fabrics. Shape C alone comes from six fabrics in six separate cutting lines, and the six add to 504 exactly. Shape D comes from five fabrics and adds to 432. None of these numbers appears anywhere in the pattern.
The finished size closes on its own terms too. Six blocks at 12 inches finished, six rows deep, no sashing and no borders. Seventy-two by seventy-two, with nothing to fudge at the edges, which is also the warning: a block that comes out at 12 3/8 instead of 12 1/2 has nowhere to hide.
The one measurement that is not on your ruler
Every cut in this pattern lands on a familiar increment, 2 1/2, 2 7/8, 3 7/8, 4 1/2, 4 7/8, except one. Shape E is cut from 4 3/16 inch squares, divided twice on the diagonal, and it appears twice in the cutting list, once for Fabric C and once for Fabric I.
Three sixteenths is not a mistake, but it is easy to read as one. The standard formulas are tidy: for a half square triangle you add 7/8 of an inch to the finished size, and for a quarter square triangle you add 1 1/4 inches. Run 4 3/16 backward through the quarter square formula and you do not get a round number, which tells you this piece was not sized to a grid. It was sized to fit the template, because shape E is sewn to shape B and has to match it.
Two practical consequences. Check that your ruler actually marks sixteenths, since plenty of quilting rulers stop at eighths, and 4 3/16 sits between 4 1/8 and 4 1/4 with nothing to line up on. And cut these eighteen squares carefully rather than quickly, because there are only nine per fabric and no spares in the yardage.
The template has no scale check, so make your own
Shape B is a trapezoid printed on page 4 of the pattern, and 72 of them get cut. What the pattern does not include, anywhere, is an instruction to print at 100 percent or a one inch test square to check against. Other Robert Kaufman patterns carry both. This one does not.
So make the check yourself before you cut. Set the printer to actual size with scaling turned off, print page 4, and measure the sheet itself rather than the template: a US Letter page should come out at 8 1/2 by 11 inches, and A4 at 210 by 297 millimeters. If the page is short, the template is short with it, and 72 pieces cut from a template that is two percent small will not assemble into a 12 1/2 inch block.
Why this geometric quilt pattern needs its placement chart
Six rows of six, and which style goes where is not obvious from looking at the blocks. The eight styles differ only in fabric placement, several of them differ by a single patch, and the design only appears when all thirty-six are in the right squares. The chart on page 6 of the PDF is where that lives, and it is worth copying onto paper and ticking off as you go rather than working from the picture.
One thing worth knowing while you sew: the counts in the chart match the make quantities exactly. Two of Block 1, four of Block 2, four of Block 3, eight of Block 4, and the same run again for Blocks 5 to 8. If you lay out your finished blocks and one of the piles is short, you have a block in the wrong place, not a block missing.
Pressing matters more than usual here, for the same reason the borders are missing. The pattern asks for seam allowances pressed open throughout the blocks, then block seams pressed to the left in odd numbered rows and to the right in even numbered rows, with the row seams open. That alternation is what lets thirty-six blocks meet each other without a ridge at every junction.
Fabric and palette for a geometric quilt pattern like this one
Nine fabrics in the version shown, and they are not interchangeable. Four of them carry most of the design, and the other five are there to separate those four from each other. Before you substitute anything, lay your choices out and photograph them in black and white. If two of them turn the same shade of gray in that photograph, the lattice will blur wherever those two meet.
Scale is the second thing to watch. Shape C finishes at two inches and shape D at two inches on the short side, so a large print cut into those becomes an unreadable smudge of color. The sample handles this by putting its busiest prints into the 4 1/2 inch squares and its quietest, flattest fabrics into the small triangles. A solid or a texture that reads as solid is the safe choice anywhere below three inches.
The original uses linen and cotton blend solids alongside the printed collection, which is part of why the quilt looks calm rather than busy. We do not carry those blends, so if you want the same effect from quilting cotton, look for tone on tone textures rather than flat solids. They give you the same quietness with a little more surface interest.
For the back you will need 4 1/2 yards, and at 72 inches wide that means two lengths joined down the middle unless you use a wide backing fabric. Our guide to cutting and joining a quilt backing covers both routes and the seam that holds up best.
Before you start
There are more than 500 half square triangles in this quilt once you count shapes A, D and G together, and the method you choose for them will decide whether this is a pleasant month or a long one. Our half square triangle methods and size chart lays out three ways to make them with the cut sizes for each, and for the 2 7/8 inch pieces in particular, the magic eight method turns one pair of larger squares into eight units at a time.
Accuracy earns more here than speed does. With no borders to absorb a drift, 1260 pieces have to add up to exactly 72 inches, and most of the drift comes from cutting rather than sewing. How to cut fabric accurately covers the blade and ruler checks that fix most of it. Two small things pay for themselves over 1260 pieces: a fresh rotary blade, because the one that was sharp at piece two hundred is dragging by piece one thousand, and a square quilting ruler for the trimming the pattern asks for at 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 inches, which is slow and inaccurate with a long ruler.
And if 72 by 72 is not the size you want on the bed, work that out now rather than later. Adding a row changes every number in the cutting list by a sixth. Our quilt size chart is the place to settle it before the first cut.
If this one is more quilt than you want this month, there is plenty else to choose from in our collection of free quilt patterns. Fractured Fragments is not going anywhere.
