You sew a block. Then you cut it up.
That is the whole idea behind the disappearing nine patch, and the first time someone describes it you assume you have misheard. All that careful piecing, all those matched seams, and the next instruction is to take a rotary cutter to the middle of it.
What comes back is a block that looks nothing like a nine patch and considerably more complicated than one. It is not. It is the same nine squares, rearranged by two straight cuts.
Susan-Claire Mayfield of GourmetQuilter works through a version that starts with 5 inch squares, which is the size a charm pack already comes in. She takes it from the nine patch through both cuts to the finished block, measurements and all.
There is a particular nerve required to cut into something you have just finished sewing.
Quilting asks for it more often than people expect. You square up and trim away the edges you worked to keep straight. You cut a beautiful piece of yardage into squares. The whole craft runs on taking apart what you have made in order to make something better.
This block just makes that unusually obvious. Sew the nine patch. Admire it for a second. Then cut it in half.
Marbelia Fernandes
The Fabric Hut Co-Founder
P.S. Do the first one in fabrics you are not precious about. Not because it is difficult, but because the first cut is easier to make when it does not matter, and after that you will not think about it again.
The nine patch this starts from, in nine sizes, plus the strip set that makes them in batches, is in our guide to the nine patch quilt block.
Block and tutorial by Susan-Claire Mayfield of GourmetQuilter. Do watch it there.
