Urban Sprawl Quilt with Art Gallery Fabrics

EEK!! Today I’m over at the Art Gallery Fabrics Blog sharing my Stackable, Squishable Fabric Blocks tutorial (if you ever want to make fabric blocks, these ones are the best, y’all – they are both squishable and stackable which is kinda a miracle in fabric construction).

AND – I’m giving away a Fat Quarter Bundle of the fabrics I used for those blocks – get the details at the bottom of this post!!

I’m super excited to be sharing on the AGF blog, but also wanted to share something fun for y’all here, so I’m sharing my Urban Sprawl quilt that I made with the yummy Urban Mod Fat Quarters that AGF sent me.

Yup – here is what they sent… the full line of Urban Mod. I just knew I wanted to make a quilt top out of these… a quilt top that would truly do these modern fabrics justice. So I came up with Urban Sprawl. It has a modern look, and some modern cutting techniques, but is really quick and easy to put together (I promise)!

I started by pressing all of my fat quarters, stacking them up, and then cutting them:

a: 2″ x 20ish (length of the FQ)
b: 11.5″ x 11.5″
c: 11.5″ x 2″
d: 11.5″ x 2″
e: extra fabic – use for scrappy binding/backing if desired

Fabric B is for my blocks, A and C is for my modern sashing, and D is really extra (some of the FQs aren’t quite big enough to get a D out of them), I wanted it for my backing, which you’ll see at the end.

I then cut my block (B) pieces into 3.

I stacked 5 fabrics, then cut at an angle across. You can cut at whatever angle you like, but cut at least 1.5″ away from the corners, just to reduce bulk at the corners in your finished block. Move the smaller piece to the side, then cut the larger piece into 2, again at an angle and at least 1.5″ away from the corner.

Here is another set that I cut:

Keep your sets together!

Take your fabric to your sewing machine. Lay out one set. Of the 3 pieces for the block, pick one section. Move the top fabric to the bottom. Then for the second section, move the top 2 fabrics to the bottom.

You should now have 3 sections, each with a different fabric on top.

Stitch the two smaller pieces together. Press the seam open. Then stitch the larger piece on the side. Press open.

Repeat with all blocks.

Square up blocks to 10.5″.

Here comes the fun part: adding the sashing!

Add one of the small sashing pieces (C) to each block. One piece, and it doesn’t matter what side of the block you add it to. Just sew, sew, sew! The sashing piece will be longer than the block. That’s ok.

Press the seam, and then trim the sashing piece flush with the block.

Sew your blocks into rows of 4. All the sashings should be parallel, but you can have fun with the placement. The rows should not be block – sashing – block – sashing – block – sashing – block – sashing. Instead, try block – sashing – block – sashing – sashing – block – block – sashing. Go for variety in each row.

Stitch your A pieces into long strips of 3, by sewing 3 pieces end-to-end. This will be your horizontal sashing.

Add a horizontal sashing piece to the top or bottom of each row. Press, and trim the sashing piece to the size of the row.

Stitch your sashed rows together to form the quilt top. Again, you don’t have to have a perfect alternation of sashing and blocks. Have fun with the placement!

Once you’re done with the top, it is time to work on the backing. I used the D strips, plus some more 2″ strips I cut from E to make a stacked coin column to piece into my backing. This quilt is just barely wider than traditional quilting cotton, so it was the perfect way to stretch the use of my fabric, and add a fun element to the quilt back as well.

Now all that is left is to quilt it! I’m thinking of doing an echo of the pieces in the blocks… what do you think? How would you quilt it?

Be sure to check out my Stackable Squishable Fabric Blocks on the AGF Blog – and if you love quilts, you can check out some of the other quilts I’ve done!

Want to win an awesome bundle of AGF? To be eligible to win you must do three things:
1. Follow AGF on your favorite social media platform – either Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Subscribe to the AGF blog to stay up to date on all things AGF & the Fat Quarter Gang!
2. Follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter
3. Leave me a comment below (maybe tell me how you’d quilt Urban Sprawl?)! Make sure to give me your e-mail address…

I’ll be picking a winner on June 3rd!