How to Make Your Quilt Bigger without Making More Blocks

Sometimes you would like your quilt to be a bit bigger. But you don’t feel like making more blocks. Especially since that number grows the more rows and columns you add. Here are three simple tricks to make your quilt bigger without having to make more blocks.

Adding sashing is a simple way to help your quilt become bigger. Grow your quilt a little or a lot depending on the size of your sashing. Braveheart and Dahlia use a skinny sashing with corner posts to increase their size. While Wonky Snowball Nine Patch has a much wider sashing. With a single snowball block as a corner post. Adding sew and flip corners can turn sashing and corner posts into stars. Adding a fun element to your quilt while making it bigger. Star Struck is an example of this.

Another way to grow a quilt is to add a border. While it’s easy to add a plain fabric border. Adding a pieced border is a lot of fun as well. It does take a bit of work. But the effect can be amazing. And while you may not want to make a bunch of the block you just made 42 or more of. Adding another pieced element might be fun. A Dutchman’s Puzzle was added to my family reunion quilt to make it a bit bigger. I love the effect it created. Mountain Home started as a single large block. But by adding multiple borders it became a rather large quilt.

Finally an easy way to grow your quilt is to put it on point. This is one of my favorite settings. Blocks are bigger when you measure them diagonally instead of edge to edge. Setting triangles add to the width of your quilt. Use this tutorial to put your quilt on point. Quarter Log Cabins is set on point. By following the link you not only learn how to make these scrap busting blocks but how to make the setting triangles. I also have several patterns where the math is done for you.