Block Setting Options

Quilt designers: Janet Nesbitt and Pam Soliday from The Buggy Barn

Quilt name: Tried and True, American Patchwork & Quilting, August 2006

After making quilt blocks comes the fun of deciding how you're going to piece them together to make a quilt top. The most simple arrangements of blocks are straight sets, where blocks are laid side by side in straight horizontal and vertical rows. But even this basic setting has lots of options, so grab your favorite quilt block and imagine the possibilities.

Often, a secondary design will reveal itself as the blocks are stitched in place.

Change the direction of the asymmetrical blocks in a block-to-block layout, and a new design will emerge.

For another look, lay out blocks with alternating setting (plain) squares in straight horizontal and vertical rows.

A similar, but more complex, look is achieved when you replace the plain setting squares with an alternate quilt block.

Lay out blocks in straight horizontal and vertical rows with strips for sashing between.

Lay out blocks in straight horizontal and vertical rows with alternating strips and squares for sashing between the blocks. Put sashing between every block, or follow the example shown here, in which sashing surrounds each group of four blocks.