Quilt As You Go Tutorial

How to Quilt As You Go

Quit as you go is a great technique for beginners and those wanting to learn to quilt. It is a great entry level quilting technique that is perfect for quilting small items quickly and easily. Here is a quick and easy quilt as you go tutorial.

How to Quilt As You Go

What does it mean to quilt as you go?

Quilt as you go is a method of quilting where you add pieces of fabric to the front of a quilt while simultaneously sewing it to the batting and quilt backing. This is a great method for using scraps and also for coming up with your own random pattern as you sew. There are quilt as you go patterns but it is a great technique for random sewing.

When you use the quilt as you go you are frequently creating quilt as you go blocks that will then be sewn together to create a full quilt. However you can also use the method to create smaller pieces, such as placemats or coasters.

How to Quilt As You Go:

For this tutorial I decided to use triangles and create HST’s. But as I said above this method is fabulous for freestyle quilting and using up scraps of varying shapes and sizes.

First cut a backing piece that is at least 1″ wider on all sides than what you want your finished piece to measure. Then cut a piece of batting that is the same size or slightly larger than the finished size of the quilt block. I like to use Fusible Fleece which you can get by the yard or precut in a small package. Then fuse the batting (if it is fusible) to the wrong side of the backing fabric.

To start place your first piece of fabric right side up on the batting. No need to sew this first piece, but you can press it to the batting which will help it stay put. Place your second piece of fabric right side down on top of the first piece. Sew the seam in place.

Then fold the fabric over and press the seam in place. Don’t skip the pressing, this is an important step!

If you want to add more stitching on this section, now is a good time to do that. I have stitched 1/4″ away from the diagonal seam line to help set the piece in place.

Continue adding pieces and quilting until you have a piece that is the size that you want.

Then square the piece and add sashing or binding to finish the edges.

What is sashing on a quilt?

Quilt sashing is the strip that holds together two quilt blocks. Sashing is often used with the quilt as you go method to hold the two quilted blocks together and hide the raw edges created using the method. With this method you will need to add sashing on both the front and back of the quilt to enclose the edges.