Lab Puppies Quilt: A Simple Alternate Grid Quilt With Instructions to Design Your Own

As promised, here is the completed Lab Puppies quilt! 

It has a very simple alternate grid layout.  One square block was added randomly to each row of rectangular blocks. Those blocks add just enough disruption in the design to make the design more interesting and to give it some movement.

This is an easy design for for a quilt with fussy cut blocks that are all cut to the same dimensions. Here are instructions to design your own quilt.

1. Determine the size of the fussy cut blocks and cut enough for the size quilt you plan to make. The number of fussy cut blocks will be approximately half the number of blocks needed for the entire quilt.
2. The pieced 3 strip blocks are cut to the same width and height of the fussy cut blocks. To determine the width to cut each strip: add 1 inch to the width of the fussy cut block then divide that number by 3. You need the same number of strip blocks as fussy cut blocks. 
3. Cut 1 square block the height of the fussy cut block, using a different fabric--either a solid or fabric that reads as a solid. Cut one square for each row in the quilt.
4. Using a design wall, lay out the blocks, alternating fussy cut blocks with pieced strip blocks.
5. Now randomly add a square to each strip to disrupt the symmetric layout.  Scatter them around the quilt. In my design I always had a square paired with a fussy cut block. Do what looks good to you.
6. Cut the right hand border the height of the pieced quilt top.
7. Cut the bottom borders the full width of the quilt AFTER the right border is added.
8. Have fun designing your quilt!

Quilt Design: Walking Through the Process, Asymmetric Borders

In my last post I discussed how I decided on the layout for my Lab Puppies Quilt. In this post we'll look at the assembly of the quilt and I'll discuss my decisions about the quilt's borders.

The photo above shows the quilt in the assembly process.  At the top is a section of the completed top. Below that are 4 rows of blocks which have been sewn together.  Under the completed strips are cut patches waiting for their turn at a the sewing machine.  At the very bottom a possible layout for a border.

My rail fence strips were cut from 10 inch precut squares.  The dog blocks are 4 inches high so I was able to cut 2 rail fence block from each strip set. And 2 inches of pieced strips were "waste".

Right. No quilter really likes to toss anything she (he) spent time carefully piecing.  I cut the rail block remnants into 1 3/4 inch x 4 inch strips and turned them to sew them end-to-end, making a narrow pieced border strip.  The strips of solids were left after I cut the 4 inch patches from the solid 10" precut squares.

The pieced quilt top was just 38 1/2 inches wide. That's narrow, so I decided to add more solid rectangles to the left side of the quilt to make the quilt 42 inches wide.

To continue the "disruption" I discussed in my previous post I did two things.

1. I ran the right border to the bottom of the pieced quilt top. I sewed that border on first. Then I added the bottom 3 borders which run the width of the now wider quilt top.
2. I added one block with a single Labrador from another fabric in my Black Labrador Puppies line!

Completed Lab Puppies Quilt Top

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I worked through the process of creating the original Lab Puppies quilt pattern.