One Block Quilts – Not Boring!

One thing I’ve noticed about myself as a scrap quilter is that I can take one block and turn it into an interesting quilt using a lot of colorful fabrics in my stash.  Also, by choosing interesting block layouts and quilt blocks that create secondary design when joined into rows, these quilts can be beautiful and not boring. First I’ll cover a bit of terminology and quilt block history, then we’ll dive in!

The Original “One Block” Quilts 

These quilts were pre-mid 19th century. They were referred to as medallion quilts because there was a central design or block, surrounded by a border of either pieced blocks or appliqué.

I have a few quilt patterns I designed to mimic that early style where I used one block as a central focus and bordered it with pieced borders and some appliqué.

On the left is Star Gazing from my book, Blooming Patchwork and on the right is my pattern, Rail Fence Blooms. Both central blocks are scrappy to add more interest.

Here’s a current pattern that is not scrappy but this one is still interesting as a one block quilt. 

By surrounding the large snowflake block in Snow Days with appliqué and an interesting border, it adds more interest as opposed to just having the snowflake block with a plain border.

The block style quilts that we know today began to emerge later in the 19th century. The earliest block style quilts were friendship or album quilts usually made for someone leaving a community to move west. Friends and family being left behind would sign the blocks as a remembrance for the traveler. These were mostly simple pieced blocks, all the same style with an area where a name could be signed.

Secondary Design Defined

When you look at a quilt and you not only see the block designs but you see another design emerge as you step back, that’s secondary design. Sometimes it’s intentional… and sometimes the designer just gets lucky when blocks have an element that creates a design when the quilt top is pieced. For me, I like to try to intentionally create it.

There are several ways to achieve this. It can be done in one block quilts, where the elements of the block create a new design when several of them are joined into a quilt top. This is what I’ll talk about this week. In two or more block quilts, joining different blocks into rows can cause a new design to appear where those blocks meet. You can also add a sashing between blocks to create a new design or play with a scrappy background so the secondary design emerges behind the blocks. I’ll talk about those next week.

One Block Quilts and Secondary Design

Option One: The first way to achieve secondary design with one block quilts is to create secondary design within the blocks themselves. Here’s an example of how this works. 

Notice that on the left, the center is a black square and the corner HSTs are multi-colored while the star points are one uniform color. It makes the 8 pointed star more prominent. And also the black portion of the block makes another unique design. 

The block on the right is the same block, but the corner HSTs are just two colors, the center and large star points are blue and the smaller star point is green. This turns the prominent star design into a double friendship star that looks like it’s spinning (at least to me!). Putting these two blocks together will create an interesting quilt.

Options Two: Choosing a block for your one block quilt with an interesting design element that creates movement across the quilt top. Here’s a block that does that:

It’s a combination of a star with some strips and stitch & flip corners to complete it. Now here is the quilt, Star Struck, that I made with this block:

When I joined the blocks, I turned them so the stitch & flip corners alternated in which direction they pointed in each row. But if you look at the block columns in the quilt, the corners point in the same direction. Those stitch & flip corners create an illusion of flying geese “flying” across the quilt.

Option Three: This is a really subtle form of secondary design. All the blocks are the same and so is the movement within the blocks, but if you stand back, you can see a secondary design emerge. I’ll use my quilt, Star Wheels, as an example. Here’s the block:

Here’s the quilt, on the left, and the area of it I circled, on the right.

The black elements of the blocks create a connecting grid when they are joined. But you have to look really closely to see another interesting design emerge. Look at the interesting design in that circled area. That something that often emerges when you stand back and look at what you think is a uniform, one block quilt.

Here’s a few other examples of one block quilts that do some interesting things because of colors or an internal element. First up is Scrappy North Stars:

By alternating the block colors between cool and warm colors, different block elements become more prominent. This is another form of secondary design that may not be uniform but still causes your eye to travel around the quilt. Here’s a close up of some of these blocks:

Notice how in some blocks, the center star radiating out is more prominent based on the colors used, where some blocks, the outer ring is more prominent.

Last example is a uniform element added. In one of my newest quilts, Sun Catcher, I added a black “frame” around the star in the block. When the blocks are joined into a quilt top, a crisscross pattern emerges.

That’s it for this week. I hope this post gives you a little insight into one block quilts and some of the fun you can  have with them. Next week I’ll continue with two block quilts and some other tips.

Let me know what you think in the comments and I’ll enter you into a drawing for my pattern, Sun Catcher (above).

That drawing will be on Monday, November 3rd so you have two weeks to enter! **We have a winner! Congrats, Betsy!***

Happy Quilting
Deanne