Road to Tennessee Quilt Block Tutorial

By: Elaine Huff

Today let's look at the quick and easy Road to Tennessee quilt block. There are lots of ways to arrange this block but we'll start with the original. Let's get sewing!

road to tennessee quilt block

Fabric Requirements for a 12" Finished Road to Tennessee Quilt Block:

  • Light/Ivory: 32 - 2" squares
  • Medium/Coral: 8 - 3.5" squares
  • Dark/Teal: 8 - 3.5" squares

road to tennessee fabric requirements

Sewing Directions:

Basic Unit:

Step 1:

Using a Medium/Coral 3.5" squares and 2 Light/Ivory 2" squares, sew together the Basic unit of the block. You will be making a partial Square in a Square block. You can find the tutorial for a basic Square in a Square block at https://fabric406.com/blogs/fabric406-blog/how-to-sew-a-basic-square-in-a-square-block. As you can see in the picture below, you will be snowballing opposite corners of the Medium/Coral 3.5" square with the Light/Ivory 2" squares.

road to tennessee 1

Step 2:

Repeat Step for a total of 8 Basic units.

road to tennessee 2

Step 3:

Repeat Steps 1 and 2 using the Dark/Teal 3.5" squares and the remaining Light/Ivory 2" squares as shown below.

road to tennessee 3

Step 4:

After you've trimmed away the seam allowance, press the seam allowance toward the Dark/Teal fabric as shown in the picture below. This is so all the seam intersections will nest nicely when putting the Road to Tennessee quilt block together.

road to tennessee 4

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Putting It All Together:

Step 5:

Lay out all 16 Basic units as shown in the picture below. (Additional layouts are at the end of the tutorial.)

road to tennessee 5

Step 6:

Sew the units together into four rows as shown below.

road to tennessee 6

Step 7:

Press the seam allowances in the first and third rows in one direction and the second and fourth row in the opposite direction as you can see in the picture below.

road to tennessee 7

Step 8:

Sew the rows together and ...

road to tennessee quilt block

Step 9:

Press the seam allowances in one direction as shown below. You're done!

road to tennessee 9

Conclusion:

The Road to Tennessee was quick and easy to sew together. I think it would make an awesome scrappy quilt as well. And all the layout options make it fun!

Additional Layouts:

road to tennessee 10

road to tennessee 11

I thought of this one after I had put the block together. It is also called X's and O's or Tic Tac Toe.

x's and o's block

Here's an image of what a scrappy quilt might look like.

scrappy quilt

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial for the Road to Tennessee quilt block. If you liked this post and want to see more quilting tutorials like this, simply click HERE to sign up for my newsletter and also receive a free PDF quilt pattern called Chained Weathervane.

Happy Quilting!

Elaine

P.S. To figure out yardage for a quilt, check out this post: https://fabric406.com/blogs/fabric406-blog/how-much-fabric-do-i-need