Wonky 9 Patch Tutorial

I found this post buried deep in my draft posts from WAY back in June of 2012.

This is a tutorial for a Wonky 9 Patch.  It's a fun variation of a basic 9 patch...  There is a little more thinking involved so you still end up with squares, but... if I can explain this right it shouldn't be to hard!

At the end of May in 2012 we THOUGHT the military was moving us away from Florida so we took a big splurge and headed to Disney World for a whole week!

Part of our fun there was getting signatures and meeting all the different characters.  My kids were in heaven.  Instead of doing signature books I decided that signature quilts were the way to go!  

See that post HERE.

After the fun was over it was time to figure out creative cute ways to make awesome blankets!  The one below was for my son.  He is into outer space so the starry print was great for him!

All my original signature "squares" were 5x8 inches big.  I cut more out of other fabric I had purchased.This quilt is just a variation of a normal 9 patch.  I just couldn't get myself to do a normal one.  

For this quilt I was careful to place my signature squares in the corners.  Each original block is 9x9, just like a normal 9 patch.  Mine is extra wonky because I used rectangles instead of squares, but you could TOTALLY replicate this process with squares as well!

My original blocks are rather large so I only made 8 of them.  I then paired them off, making sure that the colors in each of the middle spaces were different within each pair.  Notice how the top middle and bottom middle in the top square are blue and the one below it has yellow.  The VERY middles are different colors as well as the left and right middle for each pair of squares.

I cut each pair together, laying one on top of the other with  right sides up for BOTH!  In a normal 9 patch you would cut right down the middle horizontally and vertically.  For a wonky 9 patch you place your ruler and cut like I have pictured above.  You start at the left of the top middle square and end at the right of the bottom middle square.

WITHOUT MOVING THE PIECES move your ruler to make the "horizontal" cut.  This time you will slice from the bottom corner of the left middle square to the top corner of the right middle square.

When you separate them out it should look like this!  Next comes the swapping!  If you notice my bottom left and top right signatures were upside down in the original square.  Here is where that gets fixed!  Since you are probably NOT making a signature quilt you won't have to worry about that step, but  still be sure to swap where I show you!

First that the bottom left of the bottom piece.

And swap it with the top right of the top piece.

The top right of the bottom piece...

is going to go the bottom left of the top piece.

After swapping sew the "vertical" pieces together first, then press!

Then sew those two pieces together on the "horizontal".  (Not sure why this whole picture is upside down.  I apparently uploaded it that way and I can't find the original on my computer!)

Do this sewing for both pieces.

After you have done this for all you pairs you can choose how to sew them all together for your finished quilt top!

(See if you can spot the difference between this picture and the one below.)

I bordered my quilt with scraps of leftover fabric.  I know I used HUGE blocks, but the concept is the same if you are doing smaller 4 inch squares.  Just sway where I showed you and you should be fine!

(Did you spot the difference?  HINT: I had to do some MAJOR unpicking to fix it.)

I will post pictures of the completed quilting when I can!  I just realized I don't have pictures of any of my kids completed Disney Quilts!  This was before I machine quilted myself and I sent them to my momma.  She was just learning at the time but did a FABULOUS JOB!  They deserve their own post!