How To Make A No-Sew Wool Felt Mini Quilt Block

 I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

This mini quilt block is cute as a button with no sewing needed!

Y’all know that I am the sewingest sewist who ever sewed (at least in terms of hours logged, lol!), but sometimes even I–or at least my sewing machine!–needs a little break.

But of course, even when I’m not sewing quilt blocks, I still like to make them. These itty bitty guys stand exactly 1.5″ tall, and are made SUPER easily from wool felt. Instead of sewing them, I use a high-quality glue. They turn out adorable every time, and I really like how I can use them to experiment with different color combinations and block patterns without a big commitment.

Here’s how I make them!

Materials

To make these felt mini quilt blocks, you will need:

• felt. If you’re comfortable crafting with wool, wool felt is the peak material for this project. It’s got a great structure and feel, and the thickness of wool felt makes it easy to work with (there’s very little chance of glue bleed-through, for one thing) and gives a very nice finished appearance. This isn’t an affiliate link, but I personally buy all my felt from Weir Crafts–my Gmail tells me that my first order from there was way back in 2012! That being said, if you don’t craft with wool there are tons of high-quality recycled polyester felts in all the beautiful colors of the world, as well.
• glue. With a project this small, details matter a lot, so I do think it’s worth it to use high-quality glue. Fabric glue isn’t necessary, although it’s fine to use, but in my opinion the very best glue for this project is Aleene’s Tacky Glue. A little goes a long way and one bottle lasts forever–it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if I’d also purchased the bottle in these photos way back in 2012!
• measuring and cutting tools. Again, with a project this small, details matter, and the biggest detail is how precisely you measure and cut your pieces. Some of y’all freak out every time I so much as hint at my Cricut being involved in a project, but a Cricut, or a similar die-cutting tool (I also have a VERY old-school Sizzix–honestly, it might also be from 2012…), is a terrific way to get completely accurate, completely uniform cuts. However, a ruler, scissors, and very precise hand-cutting also works perfectly!
• (optional) materials for mounting and/or display. I made a mini autumnal banner with these quilt blocks, but they’d also be very cute as pins or magnets.

Step 1: Pick Your Pattern and Basic Dimensions.

My inspiration for this project was the book, 5,500 Quilt Block Designs, by Maggie Malone. Malone organizes every quilt block ever made by basic pattern, so, for instance, every block that can be made from a basic nine-patch pattern is illustrated in that section.

I love this system, because it tells me that I can make an endless number of 1.5″ quilt blocks just by cutting an endless number of .5″ squares. Part of what I wanted to accomplish with this project was playing with lots of color combinations, so simply by cutting out lots and lots and LOTS of .5″ squares, I could mix and match them and decide on exact block patterns spontaneously as I worked.

Step 2: Cut Out The Quilt Block Pieces.

I cut out LOTS of .5″ squares!

You’ll notice in the photos that I did myself some favors by cutting a few 1″x.5″ rectangles and a few 1″x1″ squares, although you can, of course, create those on the quilt block simply by placing .5″ squares next to each other. I also used a lot of half-square triangles, but I found those easiest to cut by hand with thread scissors.

For the backing of each quilt block, you also need to cut one 1.5″x1.5″ square. I also cut these from felt, but honestly any backing would work, since it won’t show. If you’re making magnets, mat board would be an excellent choice for a backing.

And again, you can cut these little pieces by hand--

–or with the help of your favorite die-cutter:

I will treat myself to a Reese’s pumpkin for every person who gripes at me about my Cricut in the Comments. Y’all need to stop griping at me in the Comments!

Step 3: Place And Glue The Quilt Pieces To The Backing.

This is the fun part!

Now that you’ve got your pieces and your pattern, get comfy, turn on a podcast, and spend a delightful evening with this coziest of cozy crafts. First, build your block just by laying out the pieces on your work surface until you’re fully satisfied with the colors and the pattern.

When you’re happy, it’s time to glue!

Because precision is so important, I like to start at one corner. Simply spread the back of a piece with glue, then set it lightly in place.

Setting it down lightly means that you can adjust it if you need to for alignment. After I get a full row down, I press the whole row more firmly to set the glue in place.

It’s VERY fun to watch your design come to life!

Step 4 (Optional): Add Materials To Mount Or Display Your Finished Blocks.

To display your finished blocks, you could glue a magnet or whip stitch a pinback to the back. I glued twine hangers so that I could hang my mini quilt blocks as a banner.

I was going for an autumnal vibe, but to be honest, I got too excited about all the color combinations and didn’t really stick to my theme. I’m already thinking about trying again for Valentine’s Day, though, since I like Valentine’s Day colors but I’m kind of sick of hearts.

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I Just Want You To Admire All My Wool Felt Mini Quilt Blocks

I genuinely have nothing relevant to say about them. Just, I was feeling sad and anxious after dropping my kid off at college, which is a totally normal way to feel but is also unpleasant and just generally sucks, and for whatever reason, spending a few evenings listening to a scary-ass podcast about the dangers of meditation while gluing together itty bitty quilt blocks literally fixed my life. Like, the colors and patterns are pleasing to look at and satisfying to organize, getting them precisely cut and precisely into place required a lot of enjoyable concentration and left me with a comfy feeling of mastery, and the project as a whole was absorbing enough to distract me from worrying that my kid forgot her Woozoo and thinks her Intermediate Macroeconomics class will be hard and also she lives 12 hours away now.

Y'all, did I just diagnose myself with autism?

Whatever. Please just look at how pretty these wool felt mini quilt blocks are.

Shoofly, from the book 5,500 Quilt Block Designs

Red Cross

Nine Patch

Snowball

Friendship Star

Eccentric Star

Bear Paw

Fun anecdote: I sent the kid a pic of some of these quilt blocks, because living 12 hours away doesn't free someone from having me yap at them constantly, and she replied, "They're so cute! Are they coasters?"

I had to be all, "Lol! They're 1.5" square!"

Instead, I made them into a banner:

Actually, coasters for American Girl dolls would nicely intertwine with my other perimenopausal, possibly autistic hobby...

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Two Off-Season Witch Hats, and One Perfectly Seasonal Table Runner

Somehow I do keep finding fancy fabric! I genuinely thought I'd used up all the kid's leftover Trashion/Refashion sewing stash, all those bits and pieces and scraps and the occasional completely untouched piece of thrifted formalware and scrounged luxury material... and then Mr. Craft Knife helped me organize my fabric one cold and slushy January day, and you'll never guess what I found stuffed at the bottom of one very overstuffed crate.

Ah, well. That navy satin formal dress and black lace T-shirt may not have ever made the cut (lol) as runway material, but it made a BEAUTIFUL witch hat!

I'm high-key obsessed with an interesting texture on top of something smooth and shiny, and I LOVE how two disparate pieces can look like they were made for each other:

And yay for Spring Break, when my favorite witch hat model became briefly available to model this latest hat for my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop!

Over the weekend, we swung by my favorite local arts and crafts thrift store because I really needed quilt batting. Alas that I did not find any there, and ended up having to buy some from Satan himself (I miss you, Joann!), buuut I did find two gallon-sized Ziplock bags full of THESE treasures!

I originally bought it just because the light blue colorway is the younger kid's class color at her school, so I'm always needing more baby blue for handmade gifts for her and her buddies, but that long piece is SO big, and so beautifully pieced--look at those perfect open seams!--

--that honestly, I'm probably going to save the smaller blocks for sewing for the kid, and turn that big block into another witch hat. It's just too perfect not to!

But here's what I needed that emergency quilt batting for!

The big kid got me one of those DNA kits for Christmas a couple of years ago, and while it turns out that, unsurprisingly, I am overall entirely from the UK region, there is apparently about 11% of me that's from the Irish part.

How appropriate for the season!

To piece the letter, number, and punctuation blocks, I used Spelling Bee, by Lori Holt, a book that I've actually been dying to use for over a year now, and I was NOT disappointed. The instructions are super easy to follow, and the couple of times I had to seam rip and try again were only because I was paying more attention to hockey on the TV than to what I was doing. I guessed a little about proper sashing width between the individual letters and between the words, but I think they look right:

I've got a couple more projects already cued up after I finish this table runner (fingers crossed it's at least before St. Patrick's Day!), but then I really want to try making a wall hanging featuring my favorite Wilbur Wright quote:

Not within a thousand years would man ever fly!

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I Sewed a Christmas Tree Skirt, as Requested

How did we ever get by without a Christmas tree skirt?!?

It looks so pretty, and now I think the tree would look naked without it, but until my older kid suggested one last year, it had never occurred to me.

Although my kid has a sort of contentious relationship with her memory, so by "suggested," what I actually mean is that when we were decorating the tree, she dug through a couple of bins and then said, "Where's the tree skirt?"

I said, "We don't have a tree skirt."

She said, "What about the tree skirt we used last year?"

I said, "We didn't have a tree skirt last year."

She said, "Yes, we did."

I said, "No, we didn't."

She said, "Yes, we did."

No, we didn't:

Merry Christmas 2023 from Spots and Jones!

Nor did we in 2022:

How about way back in 2016, maybe?

Merry Christmas 2016 from Gracie, the best of cats

Nope! Although that was the year that I ran Pappa's train around the tree and it was ADORABLE.

Just between us, I think she's misremembering the red and white quilt I have on my bed, since I generally just pull it out as an extra warm layer in the winter. 

Anyway, to mollify her I told her that a tree skirt was a wonderful idea, even though I secretly didn't think so, and that I'd definitely make one for the tree this year, even though I secretly didn't want to.

My kids are right and I am wrong so often that it's kind of starting to get on my nerves...

I did dutifully spend most of the year low-key checking out tree skirt ideas. This one from Gathered is really pretty--

Christmas tree skirt image via Gathered

So is this one from Sewing with Scraps:

Starburst tree skirt image via Sewing with Scraps

I also really like this Dresden skirt pattern from Carrieactually on etsy:

Dresden tree skirt image via Carrieactually

At the very last minute, I happened upon this Nutcracker tree skirt pattern from The Weekend Quilter--

Nutcracker tree skirt image via The Weekend Quilter

--and I almost went for that one because you KNOW how we feel about The Nutcracker over here, but I still haven't taught myself FPP, shame on me. I've looked at a lot of YouTube tutorials, but honestly I think I may need to just get a book on how to do it.

But then in one of my quilting Facebook groups, a group member posted a photo of the tree skirt that she'd made by altering the Chroma Quilt pattern from Taralee Quiltery, and I was sold.

To alter the pattern from a traditional quilt to a tree skirt, you pretty much just have to omit the center octagon from the pattern and then cut through one side of the finished quilt. Sewing the first set of triangles is a little fiddly without that octagon to anchor them--

--but after that you can continue the piecing exactly as the pattern indicates:

I did not do my neatest job on the piecing--tbh, I was basically just throwing this quilt together since I'd promised I'd make it AND I had to get it finished before I could start putting presents under the tree--and to me, the misaligned points and general messiness are very evident, ahem. But everyone else swears that they cannot see a thing wrong, even when I make them look at the very worst bits, so although I may not have perfect quilting as my legacy, I do have a perfect family.

The quilt is entirely sewn from stash, although that's a bit of a cheat because I generally always buy 100% cotton solids and abstract prints when I see them in the remnant bins at Joann, so a lot of the fabric comes from that--I dithered about buying those three different shades of green when I found them in the same remnants bin, but I don't regret it now!

The holly fabric is a true scrap, though, as I have NO idea where it came from, and the quilt back is a white sheet that somebody gave me at some point and has been just kicking around my fabric bin for years:

Pause for a festive shot of the Christmas tree in the background!

That giant back deck grill eyesore was my Christmas present to Matt in... 2020, maybe? So it's thematically relevant!

I pieced together a couple of cuts of batting to get the correct dimensions. The next time I make a quilt, I'm going to have to splurge on new batting, grr!

So festive! Especially because in this shot you can barely see the giant back deck barbecue grill! My favorite part of our Christmas tree is that a good 98% of the ornaments are handmade, and another 1.5% are vintage ornaments from childhood family trees:

After that, all I had to do was bravely cut straight through the quilt I had just painstakingly pieced and sewn and backed and quilted--

--and then bind it with some stash binding, sandwiching three sets of ties in between the binding and the quilt:

And here's this year's Christmas tree, exactly the way that my older kid dreamed it should be:

It's kind of a nightmare with the robot vacuum, but it looks so pretty with the presents.

Now I want to make a proper Chroma quilt, lining up all my points and everything!

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