All 2020 I couldn’t help but be obsessed with Cathedral Window quilts, so after making a couple of them myself I decided to make this full tutorial on how to make a cathedral window quilt block for you all to show you how easy this technique actually is!

Related:
A Modern Take on a Cathedral Window Quilt

What is a Cathedral Window Block

Cathedral window quilts were designed after, you guessed it, cathedral church windows. 

The technique is very different from your typical quilt because it was not traditionally made with any type of batting or backing. 

This quilt was originally intended to be more of a coverlet instead of a quilt, and because of the way the blocks are made, it actually has its own finished edge, no binding required. 

The block pattern is super fun and has kind of an origami feel to it with a 3D effect when it’s finished, but because it has so many layers folded on itself, ends up with about 4-5 layers of cotton. 

These 5ish layers make it a more substantial covering, so the backing and batting was decided to be not needed.

The original way to make this quilt was to sew it by hand and many people still like to make them that way!  

I however am not a huge hand sewing person, so I opt for the machine sewn version which is what I’m going to show you today!

Helpful Notions

Before we get started, there’s a few tools you can use to make this process much faster and simpler. You by no means need these tools to complete a cathedral window quilt, but you’ll appreciate them if you do 🙂

Walking Foot

We are going to be quilting through 5 even 6 potentially (depending on your color choices) layers of fabric. That’s a lot for your sewing machine to handle and a walking foot is going to give you the most consistency in your stitches for that thickness and be able to handle the bulk like a champ. 

While most machines actually come with walking feet these days, my first sewing machine didn’t because it was a hand me down. 

They make a huge difference and aren’t expensive so if you are looking for a walking foot, be sure to check them out on Amazon here.

Vinyl Seam Allowance Guides

This is one of my favorite purchases of all time, and I can no longer imagine my quilting career without these.

Vinyl seam allowance guides.

A super fancy name for what is just a plastic strip with adhesive on the back. 

They are thick though, so when you stick them down on your machine with the help of one of these 1/4” measuring rulers, they create a wall and all you have to do is bump your fabric up against your wall and feed it through the machine. 

No stressing over the perfect 1/4” seam allowance. It’s basically automated. 

Because we are working in 3D on this project, your seam allowance has the potential to make this a super easy project, or a super annoying tedious project. 

Being off by a little will cause your block to be more of a diamond shape than a square making it much more difficult to combine into a quilt top later. 

While these are helpful for this project, they are also helpful for ANY project. Check out the vinyl seam allowance guides here.

Fabric and Cutting

To get started with a Cathedral Window block or quilt, be prepared for a large amount of background fabric. 

You’ll be folding the fabric a few times so the blocks start off large requiring a lot of yardage and the get folded quite small in comparison. 

In order to get the effect of the cathedral window block we are going to need a few blocks, so for this tutorial we’ll be making 9 blocks. 

Fabric Requirements

9 – 10” squares in background fabric
4 – 2.5” squares in a patterned fabric
4 – 5” squares in a pattered fabric

Fabric Origami – Making the Blocks

These blocks are not hard to make at all, they just require a few tips and tricks here and there to get that cool 3D effect. 

Sewing the seams

Take a 9 1/2” square of background fabric and fold it in half matching adjacent corners right sides together. Your fold should be running through the middle of the side to make a rectangle, NOT from corner to corner making a triangle. 

Sew along the two short sides of your folded fabric reinforcing the stitches at the start and end. 

You have now created a pocket out of your fabric with an open top.

For the next step, open the pocket, and nest the two seams of either side pulling the excess fabric between them to either side. 

Pin your nested seams together, and then work your way out to both edges to pin the folded edge to itself so it doesn’t shift. 

You should now have an awkward, 3 dimensional, kind of reminds you of a square, or maybe a crab ragoon from the Chinese restaurant, shape from your fabric. This will make sense in a second, just bear with me, it’s a little bit like magic. 

Now that you have it pinned, take it to the sewing machine and sew the opening closed, but make sure to reinforce your ends and to leave a small hole open in the middle somewhere to turn it inside out. 

When you go to sew this, because of its 3 dimensional shape, the extra fabric on one side, and the feed dogs, it’s going to want to curl into a backward “C” on you, this is okay, just don’t sew it like a backward “C”.

You want the seam to be straight and you should not rotate the fabric creating a corner. When you get to the middle where your nested seams are and the fabric is drastically pulling to one direction, just gently grab the bottom edge where your last pin is and align it into a straight line to feed into the machine. 

Don’t lift up your foot, or rotate the whole square, just align what’s left of the fabric, the part thats already fed through the machine will adjust on its own on the other side and you’ll be left with the prettiest straight seam. 

Getting this part right is the trickiest part of this whole process. 

But you do it once, you’ll be like “oh yeah, I totally get it now”

Repeat the process for all 9 blocks.

Turning the blocks out

Once all of your blocks have the last seam in them, before turning them right side out, take your rotary cutter and snip off the corners in the seam allowance. This will reduce the bulk in the corners once you turn it right side out. 

Using the little hole you left in the seam, turn each of your blocks right side out and using a pencil, little purple thang, or any other pointy object, push out your corners for a sharp point. The hole does not need to be closed up.

Once all of your points are pushed out, bring all of your blocks to the ironing board for a press. Which way the seams are pressed inside doesn’t entirely matter, as long as they stay consistently pressed to that side for the length of the seam. 

When you press your blocks, take care to make nice crisp edges to your square, these will ultimately be your final turned edge of your block so a crisp edge means a sharp clean window later. 

Folding the Blocks

Once you have your 9 (now slightly smaller) squares, take one and set it on the ironing board with the seams facing up. 

Fold each corner into the center so you get something like the picture below and press the folded edge to make the fold (temporarily) permanent.

Repeat with all four corners of your block and when you finish the first block repeat the process with all the other blocks! 

This should feel very similar to those fortune tellers you’d make out of paper as a kid.

And that’s the cathedral window block! Now let’s chat about how they combine cause that’s where the magic happens 🙂

Connecting Blocks Together

Connecting block is super easy, you don’t have to worry about seam allowances or anything.

It’s a beautiful thing really.

To start making rows of your blocks, set two blocks next to each other. Take the two flaps from each blocks that are touching and hold them together so the blocks are backsides together. 

All you need to do to combine them, is extend those two flaps out and sew on the crease line where those two flaps would touch when sitting flat. The flaps should be able to sit back down in their original positions when you are done and you should not be able to see the stitching line.

It’s that simple! Work your way across to combine the blocks into rows. 

The process is the same to combine rows together, you’ll just have to continue sewing across multiple flaps in the one seam. 

Note: Just be sure to pin ahead of time as the flaps like to fold under your machine and get caught in the stitching line. 

Securing the Flaps

For a little bit of context, I want you to see where we are going with the next few steps of sewing before we add color into it, bear with me, it’ll make a difference. 

To secure the flaps, all you do is sew a small line across the middle of your blocks, starting on one flap and ending on the one across it sewing through the center points. Do this both ways to secure all four flaps so it looks like you sewed a cross through the middle of the block.

You likely won’t see this seam at all in the final product (as long as it’s a coordinating thread color) so don’t be shy, make sure those flaps stay down.

Quilting

There is really only one way to quilt a cathedral quilt otherwise you won’t get the cathedral window effect. 

So at least it saves you from having to make the decision about how to quilt it!

Now that you have all those flaps secured down, the quilting process is simple, all you have to do is fold back the edge of a flap and top stitch as close to the edge as possible. 

To make it easy, it’s best to do a wave on the diagonal across the quilt, that way you don’t have to keep starting and stopping for each block.

Adding the Windows

Now’s the fun part. 

Now that we know where we are going, let’s back up a second to before we secure the flaps down and talk about adding color, shall we?

We have two opportunities to add color, one happens before we secure the flaps and the second happens after we secure the flaps. 

You are able to do one, the other, or both of these color additions to a single top, that part is up to you!

Before we secure the flaps

If you look at a single block, and lift all of the flaps up for that one block, you should have a nice 4.5” square in the middle. 

Take your 5 inch charm block, snip into the corners, fold the edges back so you have a 1/4” seam allowance and iron it flat so you have a finished edge all the way around. 

Lay it into your little opening and top stitch all the way around the outside of the colored fabric as close to the edge as you can get without falling off. 

Your flaps will then lay down on top of the colored fabric and be secured there so when you fold back the edges to quilt, you’ll see an “X” shape in your colored fabric.

After we secure the flaps

No fancy prep for this one. 

Once the flaps are secured down you’ll notice the squares on point that are made where flaps from one block are connected to a second block. 

It happens to be the perfect spot to put a 2.5” square of mini charm fabric.

Using pins, or basting spray, which ever you prefer, secure your fabric in place before you do your quilting. 

When you fold the edge of the block back to quilt it down, be sure to catch the entire edge of your colored fabric as well taking special care to catch the corners of the square. 

As you finish your quilting, you’ll have a nice finished diamond shape out of your colored fabric!

Conclusions

This nice little patch of cathedral window blocks can now be taken and used in any other project you like! 

A nice bag, pillow top, the only limit is your creativity 🙂 

I hope this tutorial helped in understand how to make a cathedral window quilt block! I love how complicated and fancy it looks, but it’s actually super easy when you get the hang of it. 

Any questions or clarifications on how to make a cathedral window quilt block please be sure to add them to the comments, and if you liked this tutorial and want more, be sure to follow me below on pinterest below so you can get more tutorials like this straight to your home feed when they get posted each week!