Have you ever seen a gorgeous quilt with an intricate woven design and thought, “That’s beautiful, but I could never make it”? The French braid quilt often gets that reaction. It looks complex, detailed, and like a project for master quilters only.
But what if I told you that’s not true? What if I told you this stunning design is created with one of the easiest quilting techniques you can learn?
You don’t need years of experience. You don’t even need to be an expert at cutting fabric. In this guide, we will show you how to make a French braid quilt step-by-step. This easy quilt tutorial is perfect for beginners and a fun, fast project for seasoned sewers. Get your jelly roll ready, and let’s create something amazing together!
What is a French Braid Quilt, Exactly?
A French braid quilt is a type of quilt top made by sewing fabric strips together at an angle. This creates a beautiful “V” shape that looks just like a woven braid. The magic is that you build the braid one strip at a time, making it a simple and repetitive process.
The best part? It’s a fantastic project for using a jelly roll! A jelly roll is a bundle of pre-cut 2.5-inch fabric strips that are already coordinated. This saves you tons of cutting time and makes choosing colors a breeze.
An Easy Quilt Tutorial: What You’ll Need
Before we start sewing, let’s gather our supplies. You don’t need anything fancy for this project, just some basic quilting tools. Using a jelly roll makes this process incredibly simple.
| Item | Description | Why It’s Helpful |
|---|---|---|
| A Jelly Roll | A bundle of 2.5-inch wide fabric strips. | Saves you from cutting lots of strips and provides perfectly coordinated colors. |
| Background Fabric | About 1 yard of a solid or tone-on-tone fabric. | This will be your “sashing,” the fabric that separates your braids and makes them pop. |
| Basic Sewing Supplies | A sewing machine, thread, rotary cutter, mat, and a quilting ruler. | These are the standard tools for almost any quilting project. |
| Iron and Ironing Board | An essential tool for any quilter! | Pressing your seams is the secret to a flat, professional-looking quilt top. |
How to Make a French Braid Quilt: Step-by-Step
Ready to build your braid? We’ll break it down into simple, manageable steps. Just follow along, and you’ll have a beautiful braided strip in no time.
Step 1: Cutting Your First Pieces
First, we need a starting point for our braid. Go through your jelly roll and pick out five different strips that you like together.
From each of those five strips, cut one small 2.5-inch by 2.5-inch square. You will have five squares in total. Set these aside.
Next, take those same five jelly roll strips and cut a 6.5-inch long piece from each one. These longer pieces will form the beginning of your braid.
Step 2: Starting the Braid
Now for the fun part! Pick one of your 2.5-inch squares to be the center starting point. Then, choose one of your 6.5-inch strips.
Place the strip on top of the square with the “right sides” of the fabric facing each other. Line up the right edges. Sew along that edge using a standard quarter-inch seam allowance.
Now, take your piece to the ironing board and press the seam open. This is a very important step! Pressing every single seam will help your quilt top lay nice and flat later on. Your piece should now be a square with a fabric “tail” attached.
Step 3: Building the Woven Look
This is where the magic happens. Take another 6.5-inch strip. It’s a good idea to pick a color that contrasts with the first strip and the square to create that braided look.
Lay this new strip across the top edge of your piece, covering both the square and the first strip. The right sides of the fabric should be facing down. Sew along that top edge.
Press this seam open, just like you did before. See what’s happening? You’re starting to build that angled, woven pattern. From here on, the process is just a simple repetition.
You will continue adding strips, alternating from one side to the other. Your next strip will go on the long, open side of the first strip you attached. The one after that will go on the long, open side of the second strip. Just keep going back and forth, pressing after each seam, until your braid is as long as you want it to be.
Step 4: Squaring Up Your Braid
Once your braid is finished, you’ll notice it has pointy, zig-zag edges. We need to trim those off to make a straight rectangle.
Lay your braided strip on your cutting mat. Take your quilting ruler and place it on the fabric. You want to line up the edge of your ruler with the “valleys” of the braid—the inner points where the fabrics meet. You are essentially connecting the dots from one “V” shape to the next down the line.
Carefully use your rotary cutter to trim off the pointy ends. Do this for both long sides. Now you have a perfectly straight, beautiful braided strip!
Assembling Your Quilt Top
You’ve learned how to make a French braid quilt strip! Now, you just need to make a few more and sew them together to create your quilt top.
Adding Sashing to Your Braids
Sashing is the background fabric that goes between your braids. It gives the eye a place to rest and makes the colors in your braids stand out.
Cut 2.5-inch strips from your background fabric. Sew one of these strips to one of the long sides of your finished braid. Press the seam. Repeat this process for all of your braided strips.
Joining the Braids
Now, take two of your sashed braids and place them right sides together. Sew them together along the long edge. Continue adding your braided strips one by one, with a strip of sashing in between each one, until your quilt top is the size you want.
Finally, you can add a border around the entire quilt top if you like, or just leave it as is. It’s your creation!
FAQs
How to do a French braid easy tutorial?
This article is an easy tutorial. It shows how to make a French braid quilt. You sew fabric strips together. You add them one at a time. This creates a pretty woven look.
What are the three types of quilts?
There are many kinds of quilts. Three common types are pieced, appliqué, and wholecloth. A pieced quilt joins small fabric shapes. An appliqué quilt sews shapes onto a background. A wholecloth quilt uses only stitching for its design.
How to make a quilt with a design?
You can make a quilt with a design by using a pattern. A pattern gives you all the steps. The French braid quilt is a beautiful design. You sew simple strips together. Other patterns use shapes like squares and triangles.
What is the most popular quilt pattern of all time?
The Log Cabin is a very popular quilt pattern. It is an old pattern that many people love. You sew strips of fabric around a center square. It is easy to make and looks wonderful.
How to 2 French braids step by step?
You can easily make two braids for your quilt. First, make one complete French braid strip. Follow the steps in this guide. Then, make a second braided strip just like it. You can sew them side-by-side with a fabric border in the middle.
Your Beautiful Braid Quilt is Finished!
See? That wasn’t so hard! You took simple strips of fabric and, with an easy, repetitive technique, created a complex and stunning design. The secret is just sewing one strip at a time and pressing your seams.
Now that you know the basic steps, you can play with colors, create longer braids, or even use scrap fabrics. This is a pattern you can come back to again and again.
What colors will you choose for your first French braid quilt? Let us know in the comments below. We can’t wait to see what you create
