Make This: Zig Zag Chevron Quilt
When we’re not filling orders for our online quilt shop or working on our latest quilt and sewing patterns, we love to sew for ourselves. I just finished this great zig zag quilt for our basement family room, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result. Best part, there were no triangles involved! I found the free pattern at the Bee Square Blog.
UPDATE: It appears that the Bee Square Blog no longer exists, so I have tried to recreate the pattern as well as I can remember, but I don’t have pictures of each step. Instead of using nine prints, I only used four, because finding nine different fabrics within my specific color theme was going to take forever, and I wanted the whole quilt to have a more cohesive look.
If you want to use four fabrics, too, here are the adjusted fabric requirements:
-(3) 1/2 yard cuts of coordinating print fabric
-(1) 3/4 yard cut of another coordinating print fabric. This will be used for the stripes across the top, middle, and bottom.
-1 3/4 yards of solid or another coordinating print fabric to be every other stripe (This is the grey polka dot)
-1/2 yard for binding
-2 1/2 yards backing fabric
Cut 3″ wide strips of all of your piecing fabric. To make the small square blocks, sew a strip of print to a strip of the solid fabric lengthwise, then cut the paired strips in 5.5″ lengths. It takes 14 blocks to make one zig zag stripe. Once all your small squares are done, lay out the whole quilt, then sew all the blocks in each diagonal strip together.
Here is what the quilt top looked like when I had all the small blocks pieced and sewn into diagonal strips. I would recommend having a large area where you can lay everything out while you are getting all the pieces sewn together, just to make sure that the pattern is going together how you want it to look.
Once all your diagonal strips are made, sew them together along the straight lines between each strip. Trim all the points to make the sides straight, and the top is done. For the back, I used two contrasting flannels to make ten inch horizontal strips.
I did every step of this quilt myself, from start to finish. It was my first chance to do machine quilting with a free motion foot, which was exciting, but a lot of muscle work. I also did my first binding and was very pleased with how that turned out. The final dimensions for the Zig Zag Quilt are about 42″ x 56″. And now, here’s the full size view:
This quilt is a great project for any quilter, even the beginner. When you’re ready to step it up to the next level, our Modern Zig Zag Quilt is a bolder design for a twin size quilt, and our Modern Herringbone Quilt is another great advanced beginner quilt. Leave any questions you might have in the comments or contact us through our contact form. I loved sewing this, and you will, too!
Audrey
Wow, beautiful job! The colors are adorable and the pattern turned out great.
Love that there are no triangles! Thanks for the tutorial. I’m going to make one with scraps. 🙂
Thank you for your great Tutorial. Just finished a baby quilt using your tutorial.
I am wanting to make a full size quilt (~82×90) like this with the 4 coordinating fabrics instead of 9 could u give me a guesstimate of how much fabric I might need. (Did u have some leftover after cutting your squares?)
Not quite sure how much you would need for a quilt that size. There were a few scraps left, but not many. If you got 4 times the fabric requirements you would certainly have enough, but it might be total overkill.
Do you happen to remember the fabric names/brands?
Most of the fabrics are from Jo-Ann a couple of years ago. A couple of them are quilt shop prints, but we don’t have any selvages left to check what line they were for sure.
Such a beautiful quilt! I can’t wait to make one when I get my BrambleBerry Ridge fabric tomorrow! I love HSTs though so I’ll be using that method instead :).
Kylie
faithlovefabric.blogspot.com
You say that you need to buy 3 fabric @ 1/2 Yard. But I see 4 colors plus the grey that is every other one. I am wrong?
Continue reading the supplies list. One of the colors is repeated once more than the others, so you need 3/4 yard of that one instead of just 1/2 yard. In our quilt, it’s the yellow stripes. For the grey, you need 1 and 3/4 yard.
I don’t normally like quilts but I love this one and I am even thinking about making it!!
Thank you, you should try it! But fair warning, quilting can be addictive! 🙂
Thank you for the free pattern
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by.
I just finished a quilt using your pattern for my friends baby. Thanks so much for the pattern!!! Wish I could post a photo 🙂
That’s so wonderful, Mary! We would love to see it! If you have a Facebook account, you can upload a photo to our page: The Cloth Parcel on Facebook, or send it to us in an email to hello(at)theclothparcel(dot)com.
I love your quilt. I am making quilts for premi babies for our local hospital but they only need to be 16″ x 20″. Can you advise how to adapt for this please? I see lots of patterns for baby quilts but they are often way too big for my needs!
We’re not sure how many blocks it would take to make it 16″ x 20″. Since it’s fairly small, you could make a few test blocks and just give it a try! Our Mini Modern Quilts are also about that size, if you’d rather try those.
Hi, I have my chevron quilt cut out into 5.5″ pieces but I can’t figure out how to lay them out into the chevron shape. Is there a videoor picture of this?
thanks!
Try Jenny done, she has manr tutorials.vmadebmine with 5 inch blocks
A sua colcha ficou muito linda.Parabéns.
Obrigado 🙂
Can you tell me the finished size with the amounts you bought? Thanks
Hi Marion, you’ll find all of this information written in the post.
I am having a difficult time getting the corners to work out. I have needed to fold the corners into Firth’s to make a smaller trangle.
Is there a trick I am missing ? Wish I could upload a picture to show you what it looks like. Any suggestions will be appreciated
I wish we could see your photo to know what you mean exactly. We just pieced the quilt using rectangles, then trimmed everything square once it was all sewn together.
Can you use this technique to make a wider zig zag like 10″? After laying it out somewhat it doesn’t seem like it will. Any hints or ideas?
To make a larger zigzag, you would need the two strips to make a square when you sew them together. The 3″ x 5 1/2″ pieces make a 5 1/2″ square when you sew them together. For a 10″ square, you would use 5 1/2″ x 10″ rectangles.
Thank you. My daughter is about to be 12 and wants to do a zig zag pattern for her first quilt. She kept picking patterns using triangles, which I haven’t done many but my mom says it is hard to match them up. Once I figured out it was a zig zag pattern that she was wanting I found your pattern online. It’s wonderful and simple. My mom and I are no longer worried about her picking a pattern that’s too hard and will discourage her and she’s excited to do what she wants. We are going shopping for her fabric next week but I will return to let you know the result once she’s finished.