Medallion Quilt Block One: Broken Dishes Quilt Block Tutorial

Broken Dishes is the name of a traditional quilt block, and this Broken Dishes Quilt Block Tutorial is the first block of my new medallion quilt!

What’s a Medallion Quilt?

A Medallion Quilt starts with one quilt block or design in the center, and then each subsequent round is a new block or design.  The way I like to think of it is one little quilt center in the middle, surrounded by four or five or six borders, where each border is made up entirely of one block and each border is a different block from the other borders.

Over the course of the next five posts, I am going to share tutorials for each of the 6” blocks that go into this Medallion Quilt.  Each tutorial teaches how to make these blocks as part of the Medallion, but ALSO how to make these blocks in other sizes. This way a quilt or pillowcase or bag or anything can be made of just one block instead of five different blocks.

First up, Broken Dishes!

Broken Dishes Quilt Block Tutorial

Four half square triangles in two fabrics make up each Broken Dishes Quilt Block.  I made my Broken Dishes block tutorial in a variety of reds, darker blues, purples and minty greens, with white tone on tone fabrics for the background fabric. Actually, I made my whole Medallion Quilt in these colors.

White background fabric is definitely not required, Broken Dishes can certainly be made from only colorful fabric prints if desired.

Because my blocks are part of a larger Medallion Quilt, I needed my blocks to finish at 6” square.  I decided to make my 6” blocks from four smaller 3” Broken Dishes Quilt Blocks.

Here is a handy reference chart for a variety of quilt block sizes.  If you want your blocks to be larger than 3”, you can find the finished block size in the chart and then cut your fabric accordingly.

My quilt block is 3” square which means that each of my little half square triangles needs to finish at 1½” which is the same as 2” unfinished.  Based on the chart above, I need to start with 2½” squares.

How to Make a Broken Dishes Quilt Block

To make one Broken Dishes Quilt Block, start with two squares of one color (minty green) and two squares of the other color (white).  Note, my white fabrics are not solid white.  They are a smorgasbord of tone-on-tone whites, including paisley, dots, flowers and itty bitty rainbows among others. Draw a line from corner to corner on the back side of whichever color is lightest.

Making Half Square Triangles

Line up a white square with a green square, and sew ¼” to the right of the line.  Turn the square 180* and again sew ¼” to the right of the line.  This is a great project for chain piecing, so that you don’t have to stop after every seam.

You can get through a lot of small sewing in a hurry by not trimming after every unit but continuing until there is a long chain.   This next photo shows the back side of the chain, as the seam shows up better on the darker fabrics than on the white side.

Two green squares and two white squares make four half square triangles (HSTs).  For a more detailed tutorial, check out this Half Square Triangle Tutorial.

Trim all four HSTs to 2” square.

Placing the HSTs into the Quilt Block

To make a Broken Dishes Quilt Block tutorial, start by placing two HSTs in the upper right and lower left of the work space.  Orient both HSTs so that the green triangles are in the outer corner and the white triangles are in the center.

Place the other two HSTs in the remaining spaces, this time with the green triangles point in and the white triangles pointing out.

A more traditional Broken Dishes Quilt Block uses these four HSTs. The whole block is made of two fabrics.  I wanted a scrappier look to my blocks, so I traded out three of the green HSTs for HSTs made from other fabric combos.

Sew the four HSTs into two pairs.  I recommend sewing both pairs with the white triangle against the feed dogs.  That accomplishes the need to alternate the direction when sewing, and will help all of the seams to lay flat which helps the points to be as crisp as possible.

Then, sew the two pairs into a Broken Dishes Quilt Block.  And that’s it!  It is that easy to make a Broken Dishes Quilt Block!

My blocks are 3” square.  As a reminder, here is the chart of different block sizes and the cutting sizes needed.

One Step Further – Using Directional Fabrics

Now, can you make a Broken Dishes Quilt Block with directional fabric? 

Absolutely!

Again, start with two squares from one fabric, and two squares from another fabric.  This time, my red fabric has loopy stripes.  For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to say that the loops are up, to help with the directional instructions.

When placing the white squares on the red squares, make sure that one has the diagonal line going up to the right and the other has the diagonal line going down to the right.  The lines are extra bold in this image because it’s hard to see pencil lines in a photo.

Make the half square triangles according to the directions above.  Once the HSTs are made and trimmed, orient the squares so that all of the loops are up.

Move the HSTs into place so that all of the loops are still facing up, and just like with the previous block making instructions, place the HSTs so that two have the red loops on the outer corners and two have the red loops on the inner corners.  From here, sew the HSTs into the blocks just like the directions above.

Now, does it really matter if your blocks look like the left below or the right below?  Not at all.  But, just make sure to make them all the same.

Making Larger Blocks

For this particular tutorial, to make the center of the Medallion Quilt, you need 12 Broken Dishes Quilt Blocks total.  If you are using this tutorial to make a quilt that is entirely Broken Dishes, you will likely need more.

Start with four of your Broken Dishes Quilt Block.

Sew into pairs.

Sew the pairs into the 6” quilt block.

Repeat to make three blocks total.

Sew the three blocks into one column which will become the center of the Medallion Quilt.

If you are here for the Medallion Quilt, this is where we are headed! 

I will have tutorials coming for all of the different blocks, Sawtooth Star is next, check back in about ten days or so for the next installment of the Medallion Quilt tutorial.