Fan Quilt Block: Size Chart, Two Methods and a Free Pattern Sheet

A fan quilt block is a spray of blades opening across the corner of a square. That is the whole idea. Everything else about it, how many blades, how you attach them, whether the ends come to a point, is a decision you get to make, and this is the page where we set those decisions out with the numbers beside them.

What a fan quilt block is

Three shapes build it. A quarter circle, small, that closes the inner end. A blade, which is the long tapered piece, and you need several of them. And the background, which is whatever the fan does not cover.

The blades share the ninety degrees of the corner between them. That single sentence is where the arithmetic comes from, and once you have it you can draft this block at any size you like without a printed pattern.

It goes by more than one name, and the names are not interchangeable. Grandmother's Fan is the version pieced with curved seams, and it is the name most quilt patterns use. The Dresden Fan is the version built as a unit and appliqued down, and it also answers to Fan of Friendship and Art Deco Fan. They look the same when they are finished. The difference is entirely in how you got there.

There is one more thing to clear up before we go further, because it sends people to the wrong page. A fan quilt block is not baptist fan quilting. Baptist fan is a quilting design, arcs stitched through the top, the batting and the backing after the quilt is assembled. The fan quilt block is piecing, and it happens before the quilt is a quilt. If the arcs you have in mind are stitched rather than seamed, our guide to baptist fan hand quilting is the one you want.

The other thing worth knowing is that you have probably made a quarter of one already. A Dresden Plate is a full circle of these same blades. Cut it into quarters and each quarter is a fan. Yvonne says exactly that in her Dresden plate tutorial: divide the plate into quarters and you can put a fan in the corner of a block, and make it read like sunshine if you want to. If you have made Dresden plate blocks, you already know most of this.

The fan quilt block size chart

Here is the part nobody publishes. Most fan patterns hand you a template and leave you there, which is fine until you want a different size and have nothing to draft from.

The fan sweeps ninety degrees, and its radius is the finished side of the block. The quarter circle at the center takes a share of that radius, and the blades take the rest. In the chart below the quarter circle is a quarter of the block, which is a convention we chose because it looks right at every size and because it leaves the blades long enough to be worth piecing. You can move it if you want a bigger or smaller center.

Every measurement in this chart is a cutting size, with a quarter inch seam allowance already added on all sides, rounded up to the nearest eighth so you always have a little to trim.

The narrow end of the blade, the quarter circle and the six blade column are in the printable sheet further down, because seven columns of numbers do not belong on a phone screen.

Two more numbers you will want. The background square is cut at the finished block size plus half an inch, so a 12 inch fan sits on a 12 1/2 inch square. And the angle each blade takes is ninety divided by the number of blades: five blades take 18 degrees each, eight blades take 11 1/4 degrees each.

That angle is not trivia. It decides how wide the blade is at the outer end, which decides what you can cut it from, which is the next section.

Cutting the blades from precuts and yardage

Yvonne cuts her Dresden blades from a jelly roll, and for the small fans that works beautifully. Whether it works for yours depends on one number: the width of the blade at its wide end has to fit inside the 2 1/2 inch strip.

Run it through the chart and the answer is clean. A 2 1/2 inch strip carries the 6 inch fan at any blade count, and the 9 inch fan at eight blades. Everything larger needs to come off yardage, because the wide end of a 12 inch five blade fan is 4 3/8 inches and no strip roll is going to give you that.

If you are cutting from strips, our jelly rolls and the rest of the precut fabric are the place to start, and a strip 40 inches long gives you eight 6 inch blades, which is one whole eight blade fan with nothing left. For the bigger blocks, fabric by the yard is what you want, and a fan is a generous block, so you will get through less of it than you expect.

For the background, a fan wants somewhere quiet to sit. A busy fabric behind a busy fan cancels both out. Solids do that better than anything, which is why the antique ones so often sit on plain muslin or on white, and one piece of background fabric usually carries a whole quilt.

Method one, applique the fan onto a background square

This is the route most quilters take, and it is the one the reference books recommend for the Dresden Fan. It never asks you to sew a curve.

Sew the blades together first, one straight seam up each side, chain piecing them so you are not stopping and starting. Add the quarter circle. Now you have a fan in one piece, and the only thing left is to attach it to a square.

Press those blade seams open. This is worth pausing on, because Yvonne presses to one side for almost everything else she makes, and she says why she changes her mind here. A seam pressed open is held together by the thread alone, so when it is out in the open it can be pulled apart. But a unit that is going to be appliqued has a background behind it, and that background stabilizes the open seam. So the reason not to press open goes away, and the reason to press open stays: the blades all converge on one corner, and every allowance you turn to one side is doubled there.

Fold the background square in quarters and finger press, so you can find the corner and line the fan up straight. Then attach it. There are three ways and they are all correct.

Blanket stitch by machine is the fastest of the three, and it is the one Yvonne turns to when she appliques a Dresden down. Our walkthrough of blanket stitch applique covers the points and curves, which is where this block will test you.

Needle turn by hand is the slowest of the three, and it gives the softest edge, the one that looks most like the antique quilts. The needle turns the seam allowance under as you stitch, and the stitches are a small blind stitch worked at right angles to the edge, roughly a sixteenth of an inch apart. Where the curve is tight, clip the allowance a little, but never as far as the fold line. It is slow and it is very good company in an evening.

Turn the edges first and topstitch. If you fold the outer end of each blade under before you sew the blades together, the fan arrives at the background with a finished edge already, and all that is left is a line of topstitching. Our method for appliqueing circles with the template still inside uses the same thinking on the quarter circle.

Whichever you choose, hold the fan in place while you stitch. A glue pen dabbed every other blade, or a light basting spray, will do it. Pins will do it too, and they will also get in your way.

Method two, curved piecing the Grandmother's Fan way

The older route, and the one nearly every printed quilt pattern gives you. The blades still go together with straight seams. Then a curved seam joins the quarter circle to the inner edge of the fan, and a second curved seam sets the background piece against the outer edge.

Two curves, and the block is finished. Nothing is appliqued, nothing sits on top of anything, and the back of the block is flat piecing all the way through.

It is the harder of the two and it is the more satisfying. If you have made a Drunkard's Path you already have the hands for it, because it is the same seam: clip the concave edge, lay it on top of the convex one, match and pin at the center and at both ends, and sew slowly.

If you have never sewn a curve and you want a fan finished this week, take method one. The block does not care.

Method three, the three dimensional blade

This one is Yvonne's, and it changes the look of the block entirely for one extra step per blade.

Fold the blade in half down its length, right sides together, and finger press the fold halfway down. Sew across the wide end. Trim the folded corner off, turn it out, and the fold you pressed becomes the point, running straight up the center because you pressed it. The blade now has a finished end and a sharp tip, with no applique needed on the outer edge at all.

Leave the points standing and the fan lifts off the quilt, which is lovely on a wall hanging and less practical on a bed. Press them flat and you have a pointed blade with a clean edge. Yvonne makes both the pointed blade and the rounded petal in the same tutorial, so you can see the two side by side before you commit to either.

Why a fan sits flat, and why it sometimes does not

Everything in this block arrives at the same corner. That is where its charm comes from, and every problem it has.

Count what meets there. A five blade fan brings four seams into that corner. An eight blade fan brings seven. Each seam carries two layers of seam allowance, and they all stack in a space the size of a walnut. If you pressed them all to one side you now have a lump, and no amount of steam from the iron will talk it out of being a lump.

The fix is the pressing decision from method one, and it is the reason the quarter circle exists. Press the blade seams open so each allowance lies on its own side of the seam. Then the quarter circle goes over the top of all of it, and it covers the convergence completely.

The second thing that goes wrong is the block finishing small. Blades are cut on grain, but the outer edge of an assembled fan is a curve, and a curve cut across a woven fabric is partly on the bias whether you meant it or not. Handle the outer edge as little as possible before it is stitched down, do not press along the arc, and if you can, attach the fan before you trim the background square to size.

The third one is a point that is not sharp. On a three dimensional blade that always traces back to the fold not being pressed before the seam. Thirty seconds with your thumbnail solves it.

Variations worth making

The blade has two ends and you choose what to do with each.

Round the wide end and you have what Yvonne calls a petal. Bring it to a point and it is a blade. Both start life as exactly the same straight tapered piece, and nothing else about the block changes, which means you can make a sampler of fans that look like a family without cutting a single different shape.

Then there is the count. Five blades gives you wide, generous pieces and a block that goes together quickly. Eight gives you a finer, more antique looking fan and seven seams in the corner instead of four. Neither is more correct.

Beyond that, the fan takes to being played with. Set it as a sunrise in the corner of a larger scene. Use it as the rays in a crazy quilt block, which is where a great many Victorian fans ended up. Make every blade a different scrap, which is what the block was invented for, or make them run through a gradient so the fan reads as one object rather than as pieces.

Turning fan blocks into a quilt

The block is directional, so how you turn it decides the whole quilt. Four blocks together give you four quite different quilts.

All the fans facing the same way gives a repeating, orderly field, and it is the quietest of the four. Turn four fans to meet at a shared corner and they close into a full circle, which reads as a Dresden Plate even though you never made one. Turn them out instead and the white background becomes the shape you notice, in soft scallops. Alternate the direction row by row and a ribbon runs across the quilt.

For sizes, the block does the arithmetic for you because there is no sashing to allow for. Twenty 12 inch blocks set four across and five down give a 48 by 60 throw. Thirty of them, five by six, give 60 by 72. Drop to 9 inch blocks and thirty of those give 45 by 54, which is a good baby quilt or a generous lap.

A border is optional and often unnecessary. These blocks already have a lot of edge in them.

The free fan quilt block pattern sheet

Everything you need at the machine is on one page, and it is the only fan quilt pattern you will need at any of these sizes: the full cutting chart at four block sizes and three blade counts, including the narrow end and the quarter circle that would not fit in the table above, the three shapes drawn, and the order of work for all three methods.

Download the free quilt pattern sheet here: the fan quilt block pattern sheet. It prints on letter or A4, and nothing on it needs to print at actual size, because a fan has no templates. The instructions for both methods are on the same page. It is free to print, use and teach.

Fan quilt block questions we are asked most

Is a fan block the same as a Dresden Plate?

It is a quarter of one. A Dresden Plate is a full circle of blades with a circle in the middle. A fan is one quarter of that circle, pushed into the corner of a square, with a quarter circle instead of a full one at the center. The blades are cut the same way and go together the same way, so anything you know about one transfers to the other.

What is the difference between a fan quilt block and baptist fan quilting?

One is piecing and one is quilting. The fan block is made from cut pieces of fabric sewn together, and it exists before the quilt has any batting in it. Baptist fan is a pattern of arcs stitched through all three layers at the very end. They share a shape and nothing else.

How many blades should a fan have?

Anywhere from five to eight, and the number is yours to choose. Five gives wide blades and fewer seams. Eight gives a finer fan that looks closer to the antiques and puts more bulk in the corner. Divide ninety by whatever number you pick and that is the angle of each blade.

Do I have to sew curved seams to make a fan block?

No. Method one avoids them entirely: you sew the fan as a flat unit with straight seams and applique it onto a square. Only the pieced Grandmother's Fan route needs curves, and it needs two.

Should I press the blade seams open or to one side?

Open, for this block. It is the exception Yvonne makes to her own rule, and the reason is that an appliqued unit has a background behind it to stabilize the seam, while the corner of a fan has more seams converging on it than almost any other block. Open seams take the bulk out of the middle.

Can I cut fan blades from a jelly roll?

For the small ones, yes. A 2 1/2 inch strip holds the blades for a 6 inch fan at any blade count, and for a 9 inch fan at eight blades. Anything wider than that has to come off yardage, and a 12 inch fan with five blades needs pieces 4 3/8 inches at the wide end.

What size do I cut the background square?

The finished block size plus half an inch. A 12 inch fan sits on a 12 1/2 inch square, a 9 inch fan on a 9 1/2 inch square. If you can, attach the fan first and true the square up afterward.

Why will my fan not lie flat at the corner?

Almost always the seam allowances. Four to seven seams meet in that corner and if they are all pressed the same direction they stack. Press them open, and let the quarter circle cover what is left.

Can I make a fan block entirely by machine?

Yes, and most are. Straight seams for the blades, a machine blanket stitch or a narrow zigzag to attach the fan, and the whole block never needs a hand needle. Hand work is a choice here, not a requirement.

What is the easiest size to start with?

A 9 inch fan with eight blades. It is large enough that the pieces are comfortable to handle, small enough that a wrong blade is not an afternoon lost, and the blades come straight off a 2 1/2 inch strip.

What to have ready

A background square, cut half an inch bigger than the finished block. Strips or scraps for the blades, and five to eight of them per fan. A small piece for the quarter circle. Thread that disappears into the blades rather than announcing itself, which for most of these is a fine 50 weight cotton: ours is in the thread collection.

If you are going the hand route, the needle matters more than anything else on the table. A fine needle with an eye you can actually thread is the difference between an enjoyable evening and a short one, and our big eye hand sewing needles are the ones to reach for.

A glue pen or basting spray, if you are appliqueing. A square ruler for truing the block up at the end.

Where to start

Make one 9 inch fan with eight blades, from whatever strips are nearest, and applique it onto a plain square. Do not plan the quilt yet. The block takes under an hour and it will tell you three things: whether you want five blades or eight, whether you want the ends round or pointed, and whether you want to do this by hand in the evening or by machine on a Saturday.

Then make three more and turn them four different ways on the table before you decide anything else. This is a block that changes completely depending on which way it faces, and that decision is much easier to make with four of them in front of you than in your head.

More blocks drafted this way are collected on our beginner quilt patterns page.