09 | Merge blocks

Exercise 09

09 | Merge cell blocks together & add a block to a merged cell.

Objective | To create different sized blocks on your quilt grid by merging together smaller cell blocks into larger cell blocks.

Did You Know | Good examples of quilts using merged blocks are panel quilts, medallion quilts, and quilts with rectangular border blocks.

01 | Merge Smaller Cells into Bigger Cell Block

1. On the quilt grid, select the cell blocks that you want to merge together by clicking on them. Selected blocks will be outlined in blue.

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2. Click on the Merge button () in the central Toolbar.
3. Now, instead of 4 smaller cell blocks, we now have 1 larger cell block (that is the same size as 4 smaller cell blocks put together).

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4. Repeat Steps 01.1-2 this as many times as you need to create all your merged blocks. In this example, I'm going to create 4 larger merged cell blocks in the center.

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02 | Place Quilt Block into Merged Cell Block

To fill this newly merged cell block, you can either (a) use an already existing block and scale it to fit the larger merged cell block; or (b) create a new block to fit the dimensions of this new cell block.

a | Use a Different Sized Block in Your Merged Cell Block

1. On the quilt grid, select the cell block(s) that you want to place a block into by clicking on them. Selected blocks will be outlined in blue.

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2. Click on the BLOCKS tab on the left side control panel.

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3. Click on the three dots ()next to the block we want to use.

   • ATTN: Since we're already using the Maple Leaf block in the quilt, we need to copy the block to use in the bigger cell block.

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4. Click on Clone to create a duplicate block. Now we have 2 Maple Leaf blocks.

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5. Click on the Add To Quilt button next to the second Maple Leaf block.

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6. The duplicated Maple Leaf block is now placed into the merged cell block.

   • ATTN: The block I'm using in this example is smaller than our larger merged cell block, so we will see a yellow warning () on top of our block.
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7. Click on the yellow warning button () on the block. A pop-up window will appear.

   • Note: The warning block includes Block information in the top portion.

     
8. Click on the Scale Up button. This will change the scale of the block so that it fits your cell block.

   
9. Now we have a larger Maple Leaf block in our merged cell block.

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10. Now that we have our scaled up Maple Leaf block, you can select the remaining larger merged cell blocks and add the larger Maple Leaf block to these cells.

    • In this example, I also rotated the blocks to form a central medallion.

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b | Create a New Block for the Merged Cell Block

1. On the quilt grid, select the cell block that you want to put a new block in by clicking on it. Selected blocks will be outlined in blue.

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2. Right click on the cell block to activate the dropdown menu.

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3. Click on Create Block 12 x 12.

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4. The Block Editor window will open. Create your new custom 12 x 12 block.

   • See Exercise 02 | Create a block for a refresher on how to do this.

5. In this example, I created a variation of the Maple Leaf block.

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6. Click on the Save button () and select Save to Quilt.

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7. The block will automatically be placed in our merged cell block.

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8. Now that we have our larger Maple Leaf variation block, you can select the remaining larger merged cell blocks and add the larger Maple Leaf variation block to these cells.

   • In this example, I also rotated the blocks to form a central medallion.

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