Make that Quilt Bigger!

Have you ever liked a quilt, but wished you could make it bigger? A lot of quilt patterns today are for wall  hangings or lap size quilts. But what if you want a bigger version so you can put it on a bed? Many patterns contain instructions for making a bigger version, but what if they don’t?  That’s led to questions to me from quilters about ways to make a quilt bigger.

One question to ask yourself is if the pattern you have chosen can be increased in size without compromising the design that drew you to it in the first place. If the answer is “yes”, then you can follow some of my simple ways below. Let’s get started.

Adding Blocks

This is what I consider the easiest way to achieve a larger size. There are a couple of ways to do this.

Option 1: The first way to do this is to add more of the same blocks already in the quilt. It’s easiest to do this if the quilt is a one block quilt without an intricate border like my quilt, Sun Catcher:

There are 25 blocks in this quilt with sashing. You can add more blocks to each ro and then add additional rows. You will have to do a little math to figure out how much more fabric you will need, but that would be fairly easy.

The border is a simple flying geese border, so it would be easy to figure the math to make the border strips longer to fit. Or if you didn’t want to put the pieced border on the larger quilt, you could just opt for a plain border.

Option 2: The second option is to add a different simple block to the one block quilt to create something completely different.

The quilt on the left is one of my one block quilts, Marbles & Jacks, that is lap quilt size. If you want to make it bigger, you can add an alternating block, like I did in the drawing on the right.

The quilt on the left is 66 x 78″ which is a good size lap quilt. On the right, I added a plain block as an alternating block and it now measures 92 x 104″. Add a wider border and you can have a king size quilt. The plain blocks could be in what ever color you’d like and are a great canvas for your machine quilting.

Here’s another example if you do not want just plain blocks. Add in blocks with a simple design, so they don’t take away from the design of the original blocks.

The simple snowball block added as the alternate block serves to make the quilt bigger but also creates an interesting “criss cross” secondary design. When adding an alternate block, make sure it “plays” well with the original block.

Option 3: If the quilt you want to make bigger is already made up of two different alternating blocks, you can still enlarge them by adding blocks to rows and adding more rows. This one will take a little more thought if the quilt has a secondary design.

For example, here’s my quilt Strips & Stars on the left and a graphic on how it could be enlarged to the right.

The original quilt is 63 x 63″. By adding more blocks as shown in the middle photo above, the quilt now measures 81 x 81″. I  made sure to have the log cabin blocks turned in the correct direction to continue the secondary design of the original pattern.

Enlarging Blocks

You can enlarge the blocks that make up the quilt to make it bigger. This will take more math to get the right amount of fabric. I would do it with blocks that can be easily enlarged instead of complicated blocks. For example, a nine-patch block:

On the left above, the squares that make up that nine-patch are cut 1 1 /2 x 1 1/2″ so the block measures 3 1/2 x 3 1/2″. Change the size of the squares to 2 1/2 x 2 1/2″, you then have a nine-patch block that measures 6 1/2 x 6 1/2″.

Here’s that example using my Stars & Strips quilt from above:

The quilt’s original block is on the left above and measures 9 1/2 x 9 1/2″. If I enlarge the nine-patch units and the 4 other units of the block to all measure 6 1/2 x 6 1/2″, the completed block will measure 18 1/2 x 18 1/2″. Enlarge the log cabin block in the same way to make it measure 18 1/2 x 18 1/2″ and the final quilt will now measure 163 x 163″!

Once again… be sure the blocks you want to enlarge are simple enough so they can be easily doubled in size.

Playing with Sashing 

The next element that can be added to the quilt above to make it larger is sashing. Sashing is simply defined as plain strips of fabric separating blocks. That is historically what it was used for, whether it was in a one block style quilt or in a sampler. Sashing can also be pieced to create a secondary design. Here’s what sashing would do to my Marbles & Jacks quilt:

I added 4″ sashing to separate the blocks and the quilt now measures 84 x 100″. You can see in the last picture that I changed the look by making the sashing a light color.

I recommend the width of your sashing be no wider than 1/3 the measurement of your block. The Marbles & Jacks blocks are 12″ finished, so the widest the sashing should be is 4″ finished.

Adding sashing works best on quilts with one block design that does not have a secondary design that you would be eliminating.

Here’s some sashing rules of thumb that I follow.

Tip #1: Keep the sashing the same width throughout. Unless you’re going for a “wonky” look. I like to make my sashing a width that is divisible into the block size, but I’m also careful not to make it too wide. If I have 6″ blocks, my sashing is usually no wider than 2″ finished. With a 12″ block, I can go up to a width of 4″ if I like.

Tip #2: Plan ahead if you want plain sashing, sashing with cornerstones or if you want to create a design using the sashing. The main reason for this is to help with picking out fabric that coordinates well with your blocks.

Tip#3: The easiest way to do plain sashing is to have shorter strips joining the blocks into the rows you want and then having longer strips, the length of the rows, to join them together. However, if you are doing corner stones, all your sashing strips will measure the size of your blocks on all sides. Here’s an example of each:

Playing with Borders

Finally, borders can be used to make a quilt bigger. They can also serve to use up left over fabric. Of course you can always add a wide, plain border to the quilt to increase the size, but, why not have some fun like I did with the two quilts below?

Both of the borders above use left over fabrics. Scrappy North Stars on the left has a traditional piano key border from scraps, with a plain border strip separating it from the quilt top and for Seaside Cottage on the right, larger star blocks were made from the same colors as the smaller nine-patch blocks to create the border. The larger scale blocks in the border balance the smaller blocks of the quilt top.

Finally, frame the quilt with several borders to enlarge it. I did that on both Sister’s Reunion and Constellations below.

So, that’s it for this week’s post. Hopefully this gives you some helpful tips for enlarging a quilt if you so desire. Let me know what you think. Share below how you  have enlarged a quilt if you have done it. It’s fun to learn something new!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne