Not Your Grandma's Nine-Patch Quilts: 10 Modern Quilts from One Classic Block

Nearly 50 years ago, I found some 9-patch blocks that my grandma had left in an old chest. As my nieces and nephews were born, I incorporated the blocks into their baby quilts. Rather than do something "traditional," I tried to make each quilt unique, and some turned out to be quite modern even before "modern" was a style. This book includes patterns for those quilts—10 in all. The quilts use a variety of techniques from basic piecing to foundation piecing to applique. Instructions are included for all techniques.

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced quilter you're sure to find a quilt here to love!

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The full story behind Not Your Grandma's Nine-Patch Quilts:

The title of this book is a bit ironic because the patterns in it are, in fact, made with my grandma’s 9-patch blocks. But, most of the quilts are far from traditional, so in that respect they are definitely “not your grandma’s” 9-patch quilts.

1976 was USA's bicentennial year, and quilts were starting to make a comeback. Coincidentally, my grandmother (Mom’s mom) wrote me a letter saying that she was making a quilt for me. I had seen a bicentennial quilt pattern that I liked in Better Homes & Gardens magazine, and I wrote back to ask if she would make that quilt for me. She said yes, if I would make the templates. She passed away before I was able to make them and before she finished the quilt she had written to me about.

My mom brought the unfinished quilt pieces back from Grandma’s funeral. Some of the blocks were sewn together; others were just cut and grouped. Thirteen years later, during my first year of graduate school, I began sewing the unfinished blocks. It may seem like an odd time to take on a large quilting project, but the reason was simple: my car died, and for a couple of months I needed to take the bus to get around. So, I tucked a baggy with an unfinished block, needle and thread into my purse, and pieced by hand on the bus. It was amazing how fast those blocks got finished!

When all the blocks were done, I took them to a quilt shop called Crazy Ladies in Santa Monica, California, to find a fabric for sashing. When I spread the blocks out on the table at the shop, the ladies were super excited—the fabrics were all Dan River prints from the ’40s and ’50s! How did that happen? Well, my grandfather worked in a department store in Salt Lake City, and he made friends with the ladies in the dry goods department. Whenever they were retiring samples of fabrics that were no longer available, they would give them to him, and he would take them home to Grandma to quilt with. Some of those now-vintage fabrics are in the quilts in this book.

I sewed the blocks and sashing together over Thanksgiving of that year at my parents’ house, and when I went back to school, layered it up for quilting. I still remember how sore my knees were after crawling around on the wooden floor for two evenings, basting the layers together! I got a hoop on a stand, set it up in the TV room and, over the course of the next year, quilted that entire king-size quilt—by hand, because that’s the only way I knew then that quilts were quilted.

The next year, just as I had finished the quilt, my youngest sister got married—the first of us five girls (I’m the oldest and happily single). It seemed somehow fitting that the first girl married would get the last quilt Grandma made, so I gave it to my sister for her wedding. The day after the wedding, I wondered “What had I been thinking? That was a quilt that Grandma had intended for me!” But, of course, I wasn’t going to take it back!

My mom told me that there was an old steamer trunk in the garage that had belonged to my grandfather. She asked me to take it home with me. “Is it empty?” I asked. She said she thought so. Well, I went and found the trunk in the garage, opened it up and there were all my grandmother’s quilting supplies! There were also three UFO tops made of 9-patch blocks and a finished quilt that she hadn’t given away. So, I ended up with a quilt from Grandma after all.

The 9-patch tops weren’t particularly special—just random blocks sewn together, with some 3-patch strips added here and there as spacers. I thought the blocks could be put to much better use, so I took the blocks apart. From the strips I made a quilt for myself based on an Amish bars design (you can see it on page 107).

Soon my sisters began having children, and of course, I made baby quilts for them! That’s when I got the idea to incorporate Grandma’s blocks into the baby quilts. Those are the quilts in this book.

Over the years, as I was making these quilts, often people would admire them and say, “These are beautiful, you should do this professionally!” To which I would always reply “Oh no, I could never make a living as a quilter!” But as it has turned out, that is precisely where my quilting journey has taken me. Never say never!

I want to thank the intrepid and adventurous quilters who tested these patterns for me. Working from draft patterns—which, admittedly, had errors that hopefully have been resolved—they created the beautiful new quilts you will see throughout this book. I hope they inspire you to use these patterns to create your own.

And, I hope you pass along your quilting skills and talents to your grandchildren, just as Grandma did to me.

Click here to get the foundation for Bridget's Quilt - Fruit Salad Spinner

Click here to get the foundation for Michelle's Quilt - The Court Jester

Click here to get the foundation for Sarah's Quilt - Dotta Go!