A French braid quilt block is built from rectangles, sewn at a forty five degree angle and worked from the bottom up, alternating left and right until the strip reads as woven. It is also called a friendship braid. Nothing in it is hard to sew, and the gap between how it looks and how it is made is most of the reason people fall for it.
The part worth knowing before you cut is how the braid begins. Start with a rectangle and the first join lands below the line you eventually trim on, which throws away the fabric underneath it. Start with a single square instead and the braid climbs from that first seam, with almost nothing lost at the bottom.
Christen of I See Stars Quilting pieces one exactly that way, thirteen rectangles and one square, from jelly roll strips and scraps, with no Y seams anywhere in it. Her tutorial is written up here: the scrappy French braid quilt block.
The braid is also one of the better homes for a scrap bin, because every piece in it is small and the variety is what makes the weave read. If that is where your fabric is, our guide to scrap quilt patterns covers sorting what you already own and the five ways to hold a scrappy quilt together.
