A plaid is a simple thing to look at and a deceptive thing to build. Lines cross other lines, the crossings go darker where two colors overlap, and your eye reads the whole surface as woven cloth even though it is patchwork. Turn that plaid forty five degrees, float it on a white field, and you get this: a hundred inches square, four color families running diagonally out of a shared center, and not one block in the usual sense anywhere in it.
Plaid on Point is a free plaid quilt pattern published by Robert Kaufman, 100 inches by 100 inches, which puts it in king territory. It is made from 22 Kona cotton solids and one long white background, and the construction is pure strip piecing: panels of sewn strips, cut across their own seams into new strips, then sewn back together so that the crossings land where they should. The cover rates it Experienced Intermediate, under the line "I know the ropes and would like to test my skills!"
The pattern was designed by Jennifer Rossotti of Ginger Peach Studio, and published by Robert Kaufman featuring their Kona cotton solids. You can find the rest of their free patterns at robertkaufman.com.
Pattern details
- Pattern name: Plaid on Point
- Brand: Robert Kaufman
- Designer: Jennifer Rossotti, Ginger Peach Studio
- Finished size: 100" x 100"
- Size category: King
- Difficulty: Experienced Intermediate
- Block: Four plaid blocks, 34 1/2" unfinished, turned on point
- Technique: Strip piecing, on point setting, glue basting
- Colorway shown: 22 Kona cotton solids
- Fat quarter friendly: Yes, 18 of the 22 fabrics are fat quarters
- Jelly roll friendly: No
- Layer cake friendly: No
- Charm pack friendly: No
Download the free Plaid on Point quilt pattern PDF
How this plaid quilt pattern turns 176 pieces into 484
Here is the part worth understanding before you cut anything, because it explains why a quilt with hundreds of visible squares does not take hundreds of seams.
You build sixteen panels. Each panel is eleven strips of fabric sewn side by side in a set order, and the four panel types are called A, B, C and D, each made in four colorways. Sixteen panels at eleven strips each means 176 rectangles cut and sewn, and that is all the cutting of colored fabric the quilt center asks for.
Then you turn each panel ninety degrees and cut across your own seams. A Panel A gives you six strips, Panel B gives two, Panel C gives two, Panel D gives one. Eleven strips per plaid block, four blocks, forty four strips in all. Sew those eleven strips together in the order the pattern gives and the crossings appear by themselves, because every strip already carries eleven segments inside it.
Eleven strips, each eleven segments long. 121 patches per block, 484 in the quilt center, from 176 rectangles. That ratio is the entire argument for strip piecing, and this pattern is about as clean a demonstration of it as you will find.
The measurements close, which is not always true
We checked the arithmetic all the way through, and it holds at every stage.
Add the eleven strip widths in any panel and you get 39 1/2 inches of raw fabric. Ten seams at a quarter inch each side take half an inch apiece, so the finished panel measures 34 1/2 inches across. That is exactly the length the pattern tells you to cut your strips to, which means the number was derived rather than guessed.
Each panel also yields exactly the strips the blocks need, with nothing spare. Four Panel A's give twenty four strips and the four blocks need twenty four. Panel B gives eight and the blocks need eight. Same for C. Panel D gives four for four. There is no slack anywhere in the plan, which is worth knowing before you miscut.
The blocks themselves finish at 34 inches square, four of them make a 68 inch center, and that center is turned on point inside the white field. The binding closes too: eleven strips at 2 1/2 inches, joined, give you comfortably more than the 400 inch perimeter needs.
Why the corner triangles are pieced instead of cut
This is the detail that looks like an odd choice until you do the math, and then it becomes the only choice.
When you set a square on point, the four corner triangles are normally cut from one square of fabric, divided once on the diagonal. The standard calculation is to take the finished size of the center, divide by 1.414, and add 7/8 of an inch for seam allowances.
Run that for this quilt. The center finishes at 68 inches. Divide by 1.414 and you get 48.09. Add 7/8 and you need a square 49 inches on a side.
Quilting cotton is 40 to 44 inches wide. That square does not exist. You cannot cut it, not from any bolt you can buy, which is why the pattern builds each corner instead: two smaller triangles joined along their bias edges to make one large one, then a 4 1/2 inch white strip added along the long edge and trimmed flush. The eight small triangles are cut with their longest side on the grain precisely so the outer edge of the finished quilt is stable and the bias lands on an interior seam.
None of that is explained in the PDF. It just tells you to do it. Knowing why makes the step much harder to get backward.
Glue basting, and the tolerance the pattern owns up to
Nearly a full page of this pattern is given over to glue basting with washable school glue and a dry iron, and it is not decoration. There are two separate uses. First, a dot of glue along the edge before stitching holds two pieces in register so you can nest seams without pins. Second, and more unusually, the seam allowances themselves get glued down flat against the back of the work after pressing. That second one is what keeps a panel from pulling apart at the seams when you cut it into strips across those same seams.
Then there is a sentence most patterns would never print. The designer states that each panel should come out within half an inch of 34 inches, and adds that what matters most is not hitting 34 exactly but that all the panels are the same. If you are uniformly off by a quarter inch, the seams will still match. If some panels are long and others short, they will not.
That is an honest piece of information and it changes how you work. Make one panel, measure it, and if it is within range, keep going the same way rather than adjusting. Consistency beats accuracy here, which is rarely the case and is why it is worth saying out loud.
Choosing 22 solids for a plaid quilt pattern
Twenty two colors sounds like a free-for-all until you see how they are grouped. Four color families, each with four or five members running from light to dark, plus a white, a silver, an aqua and a fog that appear throughout. Within each family the colors do specific jobs: one is the dominant line, one the secondary line, one the crossing where two lines overlap, and one the large open square.
Which means the grouping matters more than the individual colors. Pick four families, and inside each one pick shades that step clearly from light to dark. A plaid only reads as woven if the crossings are visibly darker than the lines that cross there, because that is what real woven plaid does when two colored threads sit on top of one another.
Solids are the right choice here and not just a stylistic one. Prints fight the illusion, because a woven plaid has no pattern inside its bands. Our solids are the place to start if you are building your own palette rather than following the one in the pattern.
Eighteen of the twenty two are fat quarter quantities, which keeps the cost sensible for a quilt this size. The four that are not are the background white at 5 1/2 yards, plus a yard each of two colors and half a yard of a third.
Before you start
The backing is the part people underestimate on a hundred inch quilt. The pattern asks for 9 yards of 44 inch fabric, which means three lengths and two long seams, or 3 yards of 108 inch wide backing with no seams at all. At this size the wide option is worth the difference, and our quilt backing fabric is cut wide enough to cover it in one piece. There is more on calculating and joining it in our guide to quilt backing.
Cutting accuracy carries more weight than usual, because every error gets multiplied eleven times over when a panel is cut into strips. A long ruler with clear markings makes the perpendicular cuts across the panels much safer, and our quilting rulers cover those lengths. How to cut fabric accurately covers the blade and ruler checks that fix most of the drift.
If a hundred inches is more quilt than your bed or your patience wants, work the size out before you cut rather than after. Our quilt size chart has the standard dimensions, and dropping to a smaller center changes the corner triangle math along with everything else.
And if you like the plaid idea but want something smaller to try it on, we have a plaid style scrappy block that works from leftovers, and the Canadian Tartans pattern at 54 by 39 inches. There is plenty more in our collection of free quilt patterns too.
