Easy Pattern – Prairie Flower Quilt Block

Time for another easy quilt block – the Prairie Flower quilt block! This block is designed by Nancy Cabot. That got me to wondering who Nancy Cabot is (or was). Turns out Nancy Cabot is the pen name of Loretta Leitner Rising, a columnist (and later Needlework Editor) for the Chicago Tribune in the 1930’s. Every day, she presented a quilt block with illustrations and information about the block such as other names, traditional colors used, etc. You can read more about her and her blocks at  http://nancycabotsewalong.blogspot.com/

Fabric Requirements for a 12" Prairie Flower Quilt Block:

• Light/White: 5 – 4.5″ squares
• Medium/Green: 4 – 4.5″ squares
• Medium/Light Pink: 8 – 2.5″ squares
• Dark/Dark Pink: 8 – 2.5″ squares

Sewing Directions:

Step 1:

Modified Flying Geese Units:

First you need to make 4 modified Flying Geese units using the Medium/Green 4.5″ squares and the Medium/Light Pink 2.5″ squares. Instead of using a rectangle as the base for the Flying Geese units, you will use a 4.5″ square. This is also like snowballing two adjacent sides of a square. You can find my tutorial for Flying Geese units here: https://fabric-406.myshopify.com/blogs/fabric406-blog/how-to-sew-a-basic-flying-geese-block

Step 2:

Half a Snowball Unit:

Using 4 of the White/Light 4.5″ squares and the Dark/Dark Pink 2.5″ squares make 4 of these units that I’m calling Half a Snowball. Basically, you will be snowballing two opposite corners of the White/Light square. The only thing I did differently was to press the seam allowance toward the center of the unit after I trimmed away the seam allowance. You can see my tutorial for the Snowball block at: https://fabric-406.myshopify.com/blogs/fabric406-blog/how-to-sew-a-basic-snowball-block

Putting it all together:

Step 3:

Lay out all the units and the 4.5″ Light/White center square as shown in the picture below.

Step 4:

Now you can sew the units into 3 rows just like for a typical Nine-Patch block. The seams should nest together nicely.

Step 5:

Press the seam allowances toward the Modified Flying Geese units.

Step 6:

Sew the rows together and …

Step 7:

Press the seam allowances toward the outside of the block. You’re done! I told you it was easy!

In Conclusion:

I really enjoyed making this block – it was quick and easy – a nice break. The original pattern was made with white and 3 shades of blue but I like the way mine turned out using pink and green and white. That center square would really show off some embroidery too!

I hope you enjoyed the Prairie Flower quilt block! If you liked this post and want to see more quilting tutorials, simply click here to sign up for my newsletter and also receive a free PDF download called "Chained Weathervane".