How are your Beaded Lanterns quilt blocks coming along? It’s time to sew them together to create the quilt top! If you are just now finding the quilt along, be sure to grab the Beaded Lanterns free quilt pattern to join the fun!

• Click here to grab the Beaded Lanters Quilt pattern – it’s free!
• Click here to grab Beaded Lanterns Kits – while supplies last.

To start things off, I like to lay out my blocks on a design wall. Then I’ll spend time arranging them into a pleasing order. I usually take a picture with my camera phone to refer to while sewing.

Once that’s done, I’ll make a stack of blocks to sew in order and then chain piece, or assembly line sew them all at once. I always start sewing with a leader/ender piece of scrap fabric to catch my threads. This prevents them from knotting up when I start and stop.

It makes a beautiful mess and I love the feeling of accomplishment!

I’ll sew all of the blocks together into rows and then continue using my design wall to lay it out as I join the rows together. I press after every round of sewing to keep things nice and flat.

As you can sew I prefer to press all my seams open. This ensures flat blocks, flat rows, and a very flat quilt top which will make machine quilting so much easier! I sew with a short stitch length (2.0) so that nothing comes apart while handling.

I pin generously as I sew to keep things from shifting. Because my seams are pressed open, I’m not pinning right into the intersection. Instead I will pin on either side of the seams I want to match up and I get really clean joins and matching points this way.

Finally, I add the borders and give the quilt top a final press! Notice the bit of patchwork on the design wall below. I sewed together some leftovers into strip units and I’ll start using those on the back.

Coming up next: I’ll need to piece the quilt backing, baste the layers and quilt the quilt, so stay tuned for more! Click the links below to catch up on any of the previous steps:

• Beaded Lanterns Block Sewing
• Cutting the Beaded Lanterns Fabrics

This week it’s time to sew all of our cut units from last week into our Lanterns blocks!

Sewing the Beaded Lanterns Blocks

Read through the free quilt pattern for instructions on sewing everything together. To keep the blocks nice and straight I sewed with the light background fabric on top each time. I also sewed with a shorter stitch length (2.0) to strengthen the seams and then pressed them open for incredibly flat blocks.

I like to chain sew or assembly line stitch which means slipping each pair of units to sew under the machine and sewing continuously without breaking thread in between. Here’s my first run through after I added the lighter background to the sides of each lantern unit:

I sew as many units together as possible, then cut them all apart, press the units, then continue chain piecing until the entire block is sewn. It creates quite a beautiful mess by the time I’m done but it’s a quick and efficient way to sew!

This block is very simple because it’s two of the same halves sewn together. I used the same fabric for each Lantern unit. But you could absolutely go super scrappy if you wanted to! The trick is to make sure you are sewing with accurate 1/4″ seams so that each unit ends up the same size.

I press each seam as I go and then press the final block front and back when I’m finished. The reason I do this is so that the blocks and quilt top will lie flat for domestic machine quilting. I’m always thinking about how the piecing will affect the quilting and vice versa!

I love having a yummy pile of freshly sewn bocks! Aren’t they pretty?

Don’t forget to make the square blocks in addition to the lantern blocks! If you don’t already have a copy of the free quilt pattern, you can grab it below, along with the optional kit in 3 colorways:

• Click here to get my free quilt patterns, including Beaded Lanterns.
• Click here to view all Quilt Kits, made from my designer fabrics.

Homework:

Sew all of the blocks so they are ready to make the quilt top. Share pics of your progress and feel free to ask for any help you need over in my Christa Quilts Group on Facebook!