Start quilting: your first patchwork quilt
Piece, baste, quilt and bind a simple square-patch or half-square-triangle quilt.
Who it's for
Beginners who can sew a straight line and want to make a first quilt, such as a cot quilt or lap quilt.
Beginners who can sew a straight line and want to make a first quilt, such as a cot quilt or lap quilt.
- Cut safely and accurately
A rotary cutter, mat and ruler are the core quilting tools.
Rotary cutter basics - Get your quarter-inch seam right
See the quarter-inch seam guide.
Quarter-inch seam - Speed up with chain piecing
Feed pairs through one after another.
Chain piecing - Try half-square triangles
The building block of many simple patterns.
Half-square triangles - Press seams consistently
Pick open or to one side and stick with it.
Pressing quilt seams - Make the quilt sandwich
Backing, wadding, top, basted from the middle out.
Basting guide - Quilt straight lines with a walking foot
Simple lines in or beside the seams are a great first finish.
Walking foot basics - Bind it
Machine binding is quick and sturdy.
Machine binding
Sources
All checked 1 November 2026. We read these; we did not test the products ourselves.