Sweet Sixteen Quilt Along - Easy Peasy!

Hi, all!

Here we are at week five of the Sweet Sixteen Quilt Along!  Thankfully, that means sixteen-patch blocks, not sixteen versions! Although I'm sure there's more than that out there, waiting to be found.  If this is your first visit to the quilt along, here's a quick look back at what we've been doing. The first week, we looked at different ways to make a sixteen-patch block. Then, in the following weeks, we looked at some different ways to use those blocks…

This combination of sixteens and pinwheels from week 2...

This modern take on the 16-patch quilt from week 3...

And this one-block quilt from week 4!

And now, for week 5, I'm going to share with you one of the easiest sixteen patch quilts ever - the postage stamp quilt!

You can't get much easier than this quilt!  My version is made using 2.5" strips cut from fat quarters.  I sewed them together in groups of four, 

cross-cut them into 4-patch strips.

then threw them into a bin and mixed them all up!

From that bin I drew out four random strips and put them together into a 16-patch block.  Up on the design wall it went...

…joined by some friends...

…a few more came along for the ride...

…until it filled up to capacity!

Some fun quilting, and it was finished!  

I really did enjoy this quilting - some sharp-pointed spirals like I've done before, but just for fun I threw in some leaves occasionally.  See them there in the center?

Here's the simple directions for this quilt.  Mine is made with 2.5" squares, because it worked well with the fat quarters I had. If you cut your 2.5" wide strips on the long side of the fat quarter, four 21" strips will give you four 16-patch blocks.  My quilt has 64 blocks, which means I needed 32 four-strip sets, or 128 2.5"x21" strips.  Each fat quarter will yield 6-7 strips, so you will need 19 to 22 fat quarters to make this 64" square quilt.

You could also do this using leftover jelly roll strips or individual squares in whatever size you want.  You can make the squares larger or smaller according to your preference. A true postage stamp or penny-saver quilt is traditionally made up of 1" squares - truly a scrappy quilt!  But it's easy achievable using strip piecing and sews up pretty quickly.  I've made this quilt using batiks and it is truly beautiful.  I'd love to see it in a wide variety of colors and prints, too!

Here's one more "pretty" shot of the quilt, although I just noticed my shadow at the bottom!

And here, you can see why I missed that when I was taking the picture!  It was so windy I had a hard time getting good shots at all!

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

Now it's your turn to show off what you've been doing with 16-patch blocks!  Check out what everyone's been doing - maybe you'll be inspired!  I know I've found lot of inspiration seeing what others are doing…..

Hugs!

Sarah