Larger quilt blocks offer the incentive that there are less to make to produce your quilt. When time is limited, this size of block is your best friend. A second feature is that you can try a more difficult design as the pieces may be many, but the sizes of the patches are easy to work with. A win-win all around.

Jewel Box

Free Quilt Block Pattern

The Jewel Box quilt block has been around for a very long time. It is a simple four patch featuring only the simplest of patches used in quilting -- the square and half square triangle. This quilt block is a perfect choice to use up all of those tiny scraps you have been saving. My personal opinion is that quilters used "jewel" coloured fabric scraps and thereby created the name of this block (but I am only guessing). In any case, the more scraps you have the better.

My version of this quilt block uses a single, light background fabric, but you may choose to use a variety of fabrics for this. The only requirement is that there is lots of contrast between the background fabric and all of the other fabrics used. (*Note - many quilters choose a dark fabric for the background instead, and then, of course you also must have lots of contrast with the remaining fabrics.)

NEXT - Sample quilt layouts for JEWEL BOX quilt block