UNIQUE Numbered Marking Pins make assembling your quilt top as easy as 1-2-3

According to the calendar spring has officially arrived! According to the latest weather forecast it’s nowhere to be seen. So, for this reason I decided to make a cheerful, crib quilt. To help me out with this I’ll be using these great new pins: UNIQUE QUILTING 1-10 Numbered Marking Pins – 43mm (1¾”) – 100 pcs.

Today’s project will be easy and quick to put together from 8″ x 8″ finished quilt blocks.

materials

For each block, you’ll need two different colored fabrics. They can be contrasting, complementary or matching, the choice is yours. By the way, this is a great block to use up leftover jelly roll strips that you may have lying around.

Color 1

• Four squares each measuring 2.5″ x 2.5″

Color 2

• Two squares each measuring 2.5″ x 2.5″
• Two rectangles each measuring 4.5″ x 2.5″
• Two rectangles each measuring 6.5″ X 2.5″

Before starting to sew, I pre-cut enough fabric for 35 blocks. This quilt top will have seven rows with five blocks in each row and the completed quilt will measure 40″ x 56″.

Before you start sewing I would suggest you lay out one block to get a visual of where each piece of the block belongs.

As you can see from the next photo, this block is best-assembled row by row.

I constructed 35 blocks for this project. Now I must decide which layout I want to use. This block, like the log cabin block, allows for so many possible variations in the placement of the blocks. Take the time you need, lay the blocks out in different ways to see which positioning you prefer. I actually use my camera to take pictures of each of the arrangements as I lay them out so I can review them and decide which I like best.

Now, one issue I’ve had in the past once the layout was chosen was how to bring it back to the sewing machine and sew the quilt top together without making any mistakes!

Over the years I’ve tried several methods to prevent errors:

• using my memory – don’t laugh!
• putting multiple pins in one block as a way to count and tell me the location of the block in the quilt
• writing numbers on stickers only to later realize that the stickers’ glue had stayed on the fabric
• pinning written number combinations to each block on tiny scraps of paper

The last method worked best for me even though it was a little time-consuming. So, imagine my delight when I discovered that Unique makes numbered pins! The pins come in nice, compartmentalized boxes numbered from 1 to 10 or from 11 to 20. Each box contains 100 pins with ten of each number.

These pins are going to save you (and me) time and make sewing the quilt top a breeze!

This is how I use them: I place a numbered pin on the top of each block. Pin 1 on block one and so on. Then I go back to the first block and put another pin identifying which row that block should go in. So, when I see Pin 5 followed by Pin 1, I know that it’s block five from row one.

I place a pin on every block before removing the block from the design wall or, in my case, from the design floor. Once all of the pins are in place then I place all the blocks in piles according to row and then I’ll only sew one row at a time.

As the rows are sewn I remove all of the pins except for the pin identifying the row number. For safety’s sake, I only remove the last of the pins once all of the rows have been sewn together!

With the quilt top done, it now needs to be quilted and bound. Have fun!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how helpful the UNIQUE Numbered Quilting Pins are for assembling quilt tops. This quick little quilt can be completed in a day – perfect for a last minute gift!

Be sure to come back tomorrow to see how to make a cute little quilted bear.