Here’s a fun little block, that combines to make a nice large block in different ways. Get the PDF guide for all the measurements for the 6 or 12 inch finished block, then watch the video to see it all come together. Friendship Quilt Block Guide
(The following contains affiliate links. View our full disclosure here: Disclosure Statement)
The thin tape Paulette shows on her sewing machine can be found here: Thin Striping Tape
There is also a special 1/4” tape available here: 1/4″ Seam Tape
Video transcript:
Hi everyone I’m Paulette Morrissey from Tulip Square and this week I’m going to show you how to make this friendship block this is actually four small blocks as you can see and there’s a couple different variations on how you put the four together to give you a slightly different look but it’s a real quick and easy pattern for you to make takes two contrasting colors plus white goes together very quick and easy this is like a 12 inch square block once it’s done or these little ones are 6 inches square so we’re going to head over to the sewing machine and get started on it let’s go
okay to make the friendship block you’re going to need a white and two fairly dark contrasting colors that contrast nicely with the white and contrast nicely with each other so I’m using this blue and this purple which obviously both will contrast nicely with the white all of the dimensions and the quantities you need will be in a PDF that’s in the description below you can download that anytime you want to and then what you want to do first of all is you want to draw a line diagonal line on the back of all of the white pieces so I’ve gone ahead and about finished doing that I’m just drawing a nice accurate diagonal line because I’m going to sew on both sides of it and you want it to be nice and accurate down the middle make it dark enough that you can see it but not so dark that it’s a big mess that you don’t want to deal with later so you’re going to line up your pieces either the purple or the blue you’re going to use all of them and I’m going to sew a quarter inch on each side of that line and once you’ve sewn on both sides of the line you drew you’re going to cut on the line you just drew
this will give you a quarter inch seam allowance on each half and then you’re going to open these and you’re going to press towards the darker color the purple or the blue and press them all towards that and you have two triangle squares from each square you sewed so then you’ll have two nice squares from each one that you sewed so I’m going to sew these all together and when I’m done I will have eight of these purple and white triangle squares and I will have eight of the blue blue and white triangle squares so I’m going to go ahead and sew all of those okay now I’ve got eight of these blue squares with the white triangle and I’ve got eight of the purple so what you’re going to do is make your little purple tiny squares and you’re going to sew one to the white corner of every purple block little tiny right there and you’re going to sew diagonally straight across here now you can draw a line if you want or you can follow a line on your sewing machine and what I like to do I’m just going to swing over here and show you this I’ve got a thin piece of tape on my sewing machine and if I sew right along this edge of it the left edge of it it is lined up with my needle to be center stitch so if I put my needle right at the point
and I have this other point right on this edge and I follow that edge as I sew I just keep it on that edge
I have a perfect diagonal seam so you can do that if you’ve got a line on your sewing machine or you can just draw diagonal lines on the back of these little squares but you’ll have to draw it on the back of all blue and all purple little squares and if you want a little this is just some tape I bought on Amazon it’s just 1/8 inch I don’t even know what kind of tape it is but it came in a little roll that I will have enough to last me forever but it just eliminates having to draw a lot of lines on a lot of times so I kind of like that sew all the little purple squares to the purple blocks and I’m going to sew all the little blue squares to the blue blocks now once I’ve got all of these pieces sewn on the corner I’m just going to snip off that little excess seam and I’m going to press these open this way I’m going to do that with the whole stack of them so I’ll be right back and then I’ll have all the blues and the purples all done okay I’ve got these all sewn and they’re all pressed and when I press them I pressed the purples towards the purple and when I press the blues I press them away from the blue and towards the white so when I do this next step they will nestle nicely so what you’re going to do now is take them in pairs all the same purple on the left blue on the right you’re going to sew them together and by alternating how you pressed the seams they will now nestle together nicely when you sew them I’m going to go ahead and sew all these pairs together and once you’ve got those all sewn together in pairs we’ve got them like this you’re going to press them towards purple or your darker of the two colors just press them all the same way and now you’re going to sew these together in pairs so you have it will look like this as you’re sewing making sure that these seams all line up you need to have these these pair right here line up the seams right here need to line up and then your center seam in the same here but just take time to make sure everything lines up so everything looks good once you’ve sewn it I’m going to go press these and these now you can press either direction or you can press them open now you’ve got four very pretty blocks that will look like this once sewn into something it will be 6-in blocks now you can also take these four and sew them together make one big 12 inch block in back this up a little bit and you can see what I’m doing here you can sew four of them together like this or you can put them like this whichever you prefer or you can put all the blues in the middle whatever way you like them the best or whatever way you want them you just sew them together in pairs and then you sew them down the middle these are two pieces the same okay I’m just going to sew this center seam and there is your friendship block and this is a 12-inch block once it’s sewn in into something right now it’s about 12 and 1/2 inches and the individual squares were 6 inches and there you have all done and now you know how to make the friendship block this is a really pretty block to make real easy very few pieces this is a 12-inch block so it makes a good size block the little ones are 6-inch block it’s just a nice block remember you need contrasting colors you gotta have good contrast and if you don’t want the white you need a third contrasting color nice contrast so I hope you like this video please hit the like button hit the Subscribe button and if you want to be notified when we put up new videos hit the little bell and remember we put up a new video every Saturday morning 10:00 so we’ll see you next week until then happy sewing bye-bye