{Classic Quilt Blocks} Jacobs Ladder - A Tutorial

Classic Quilt Blocks have been sewn for centuries, are easy to recognise and are every quilters favorite. Let's celebrate these gorgeous blocks and add them to our quilting projects!

It's tutorial week in my Jacobs Ladder Classic Quilt Blocks series, and it's always my favorite week because we get to sew together YAY! Hopefully you had some time to download last week's colouring sheet and plan a few blocks to sew, but if you didn't then grab your scrap bins and join in anyway.

We'll be sewing a 6" finished block and to make it quick and easy some of the units will be strip pieced. I personally prefer cutting small pieces and sewing them back together, but sometimes it's fun to do the fiddly stuff in a more time efficient manner.

At the end of the tutorial I've included a Cutting Chart for six sizes of the Jacobs Ladder block, which will be useful for future projects. All the math is done for you, so keep is safe and you'll be ready to sew a project with a block size that suits your needs.

You'll notice two things in this tutorial and in the Cutting Chart - the squares for the HST units are cut slightly larger than required and then trimmed (this helps with accuracy) and the strips are also cut a little longer than the math requires (this allows for trimming and re-trimming, if necessary, when cross cutting the units)

OK, let's grab some fabrics and sew a block:

From your background fabric cut:

 

• 2 x 3" squares cut diagonally to yield 4 triangles (A)
• 1 x 1 1/2" x 16" strip (C)

From your print fabric cut:

• 2 x 3" squares cut diagonally to yield 4 triangles (B)
• 1 x 1 1/2" x 16" strip (D)
  

• Sew a print (B) triangle to each of the four background (A) triangles, along the long sides and pressing seams towards the print triangles.
• Carefully trim each of the four HST units to 2 1/2" square. Set aside.

• Sew the print (D) strip to the background (C) strip, along the long sides and pressing the seam towards the print strip.
• Square up and trim one short edge, and crosscut 10 units at 1 1/2" intervals - use your ruler lines to ensure units are cut straight and accurate and re-trim the strip if necessary.

• Arrange the units into five groups of two units, alternating the orientation of the units to create 4 patch units.
• Carefully matching the centre seam, sew the units together to yield five 4 patch units, pressing seams open or to one side. 
• Carefully trim each of the five 4 patch units to 2 1/2" square if required.

• Arrange the HST and 4 patch units into three rows, using the photo to ensure the correct orientation of all units.

• Sew the units together into three rows, pressing seams in alternate directions for nesting.

• Carefully matching all seams, sew the three rows together, pressing seams open or in the same direction, to complete your Jacobs Ladder block which should measure 6 1/2" square.
  

And that's it! One sweet little block to add to your collection or to use in future projects. I hope you enjoyed sewing this Classic Quilt Block. It's lots of fun and they become quite addictive -try stopping at just one!

I've put together a Cutting Chart for six different sizes of the Jacobs Ladder block. They are all sewn in the same manner as the tutorial, but the cutting requirements and the unit sizes will be different.

Simply click of the link to download your free chart or right click on the photo below and save it to your computer:

To make it easy for you, I've included all the information you'll need, including the HST unit size, the cross cut unit size and the 4 patch unit size.  I hope this chart is helpful for all your future Jacobs Ladder projects. Have fun!

And that's it for this week. Next week I'll be sharing some of my favorite Jacobs Ladder quilts, and they illustrate just how versatile this Classic Quilt Block is in quilt design. There's lots of clever and fun quilts to admire, and I'm sure you'll be adding quite a few to your must make list. 

At the very least, I hope they inspire you to play with colour values and block layouts to create your own beautiful Jacobs Ladder quilt.

Happy quilting :)