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Am I behind the trend? Looking through some of my quilt magazines and on-line, I see a lot of quilt patterns are now using oversized traditional block patterns. Blocks are 15", 18" and 20". Have you noticed this?

Shoofly, Oversized

Whirling Star, Oversized

I realize they don't look any different here but think of them as 20" blocks. Your quilt is pretty much made with a lot less blocks.

And I saw the quilts aren't using large borders, just the binding.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: paus4quilts,

Hadn't noticed it, but I suppose it makes sense if you need a quilt quick, I think most of the smaller pieced patterns were invented due to necessity to use up small bits of fabric, clothing...

I've noticed I'm in the process right now of making my DH a quilt with 17" blocks It does make for fast piecing

With larger sized blocks like that it might be fun to replace some of the square pieces with smaller pieced blocks....like a pinwheel, 4patch, 9 patch,etc.

Otherwise those large areas would need an interesting quilting design to keep from looking so plain - unless a plain and simple look is what you are going for. That can be charming too.

Now I want to go play around on EQ to see what I can come up with!

The "block" I'm making now is 37" square with about 170 pieces each block. It calls for 9 blocks for a queen size quilt but I'm thinking I may just make a 4 block square instead.

I have magazines called Big Block Quilts published for years. We're a hurry up society so it makes sense. But as Jeepdarla said you need interesting quilting designs to fill up all that blank space. When the blocks are large it's easy to lose the blocks when put on a bed. You can't even tell there's a star if it's large. Looks like a bunch of shapes sewn together instead of blocks. One of my favorite quilts was made of churn dashes with another block put as the center square. It was so interesting. You just had to be sure the fabric choices allowed both blocks to show up. I also made large churndashes with a snowball block for the inside square and appliqued a snowman's face for the interior of the snowball. That was fun. BUT I also had a red, white, and blue quilt that had 22" blocks that got totally lost when put into a quilt. It was depressing.

I also find that putting interesting quilting designs hard on the big blocks. I do not have a long arm machine so I am restricted by that. I do think they have their place but not at my house for now.

Finally I may get to use my 20 1/2 inch ruler.

Interesting..When I first started quilting larger quilts I always wanted larger blocks...now I want the blocks smaller.Just had this conversation with a friend yesterday...she has not gotten to the smaller block stage yet...I feel it happens to a lot of quilters,the more experienced you get you appreciate the smaller block or as jeepdarla and Evelyn said...put a smaller block inside...I do have a couple of books that are for HUGE blocks...