How to Sew Quilt Squares Together (Quilt-As-You-Go Method)

Quilt-as-you-go works with any blocks you have - vintage embroidered squares, charm pack precuts, your own pieced blocks. Jenny is using ten-inch background squares from a Moda print pack along with old embroidered blocks she rescued from antique shops over the years.

You'll need three things stacked up next to your machine: the embroidered or pieced blocks, cotton batting cut to size, and background squares large enough to give each block a one-inch border on all four sides. Pick a background print that ties your blocks together. Jenny's small-scale 1930s reproduction print does that work here.

Cut a piece of batting a half-inch larger than your embroidered block. Center the batting on the wrong side of your background square, then center the embroidered block face-up on top of the batting. You should see a one-inch frame of background fabric around all four sides.

Eyeballing it is fine - the next step traps everything in place with stitching, and you'll trim the borders to size right after. The batting sandwiched between layers is what gives the finished quilt its weight and warmth.

Move to the sewing machine and stitch the embroidered block to the background right along the edge of the block. Don't use a quarter-inch seam - go as close to the edge as you can without falling off. The goal is to preserve every bit of the embroidery on the finished quilt.

A straight stitch is fine. A small zigzag also works and locks the raw edge of the block down a little better. Pick one and stay consistent through the whole quilt. Sew slowly and keep the block lined up - shifting halfway through means a wonky border on this block.

Lay your stitched block flat on the cutting mat. Set the ruler down so its edge sits exactly one inch out from the stitch line you just sewed. Cut along the ruler with a rotary cutter on all four sides.

Before you cut the second block, lay it next to the first and confirm they're the same size. If one is a hair bigger, trim it down to match. Consistent block sizes are what make the finished quilt look square - this is the step where that happens.

Here's the move that makes this method work. Take two finished blocks and lay them WRONG sides together - so both right sides face outward. The back of each block sits on the inside of the seam.

This is the opposite of normal piecing. With quilt-as-you-go, the seam will end up on the front of the quilt, hidden under a folded flap that you sew down in step 8. Before you head to the machine, check that both blocks are oriented the right way up. You don't want to discover the kitty is sideways after the seam is in.

Take the pinned pair to the machine and sew along the original stitch line - the one you sewed in step 3 to attach the block to its background. That seam sits about one inch in from the raw edge.

Run a standard straight stitch and back-tack at both ends. The two blocks are now joined down their shared seam, but you've still got a raw flap of background fabric on the front side that needs finishing. That happens in the next two steps.

Open the joined pair and press the seam flat with an iron. Fold one of the raw flaps under as tightly as it will go - all the way down to the stitch line on the back. Then lay that folded edge over the top of the other raw flap, covering both seam allowances.

You're aiming for a finished flap that's just under a half-inch wide. Press it flat as you fold so it stays in place. This is the move that hides the seam and finishes the front of the quilt at the same time.

Back at the machine, top-stitch the folded flap down right along the edge of the fold - not a quarter-inch in, right on the fold itself. This locks the seam closed and finishes the front of the quilt in one pass.

Repeat steps 5 through 8 for every pair of blocks. Build complete rows first - sew block one to block two, then block two to block three, all the way across. Once your rows are done, join them together with the same fold-and-top-stitch technique on the long horizontal seam. When the last row goes on, the quilt is finished. No separate binding required - just fold the outer edges over and top-stitch them down the same way.