Staying Organized Without a Design Wall

This Staying Organized Without a Design Wall tutorial is going to run backwards to how most of my tutorials are structured. 

Rather than teaching you how to cut fabric to make quilt blocks and how to put quilt blocks together to make quilt tops, I am going to start with the finished quilt, then show the individual blocks, AND THEN move into teaching you how you can master staying organized without a design wall.

Spoiler alert: I kept the entirety of this quilt on a corner of my kitchen table right up until I was sewing the rows together.  And I didn’t mix up any pieces or put any blocks together incorrectly!

This quilt is made up of the same block repeated 20 times in a variety of blue, yellow and green prints, with many different cream background and sashing fabrics.

The individual quilt block, with a little bit of the sashing around the outside edges.

Making Each Section of the Block

Making this quilt block starts with some quarter square triangles, the first two quarters highlighted here in green.

The second two quarters of the quarter square triangles are a single, larger triangle.

I made the first two quarters of the quarter square triangles and laid them out in a 4 by 5 grid on my kitchen table. 

Both the background fabric and the colored fabric determined the placement, I didn’t want to end up with all of the same backgrounds in one corner of the quilt.

Then, I laid out the larger triangles, take care to have an even distribution of blues, greens and yellows, and to make sure that it wouldn’t get lost with the fabric selections of the smaller triangles.

The next step was to determine which fabrics to use for the outer corner half square triangles.

It’s a little tough to see, but the quarter square triangles are all still in place with the square that will become half square triangles placed on top.

Keeping everything in place so that no blocks go together in correctly.

After I made the half square triangles for the corners, I placed them UNDERNEATH the quarter square triangles that make the stars in the center of the blocks.

To make the block centers, I made 4-patches and then spread out the colors over the block pieces already on the table.

The reason the bottom two piles are missing from this photo is because I had already started sewing the components together to make the blocks before I remembered to take a photo.

Speaking of making the blocks, at this step the blocks become too big to keep on the corner of the table, so I needed a change in order to continue staying organized without a design wall.

Making 20 Quilt Blocks

I put the blocks together one at a time, starting from the bottom right of piles and working my way left across the rows, and from the bottom row to the top.

Then, as I completed each block, I stacked each new block on top of the last.  That means that once all 20 blocks are complete, the one that will be in the top left of the quilt is on the top of the pile and the one on the bottom right of the quilt is at the bottom of the pile.

Moving Off the Table

Moving to the very fancy design floor was easy at this point, because everything was so organized while on the table top.

Using a fuzzy blue flannel back, the quilt is basted, quilted and bound in the same manner as previous tutorials and ready for use by a sweet baby boy.