Choose a quilt layout: sashing, on point, half drop, more

The layout is how the blocks are set. Quarter Inch has eleven, in two groups: Squares for square blocks, and Diamonds and hexagons for shapes cut at 60° and 45°. You choose one in the second step of a new quilt, and you can change most of them later in the designer.

For what each layout is and when to use it, whatever you design with, read Quilt layouts explained. This page is about where each one is in the app and what it lets you set.

Choose a layout

1. Start a quilt with New quilt and Guided, and choose a size under How big?

2. Under Layout, tap a card. The quilt on the right is drawn again at once, with its finished size and how many blocks.

   

3. Set the layout’s own choices under the cards (block size, sashing, strips and so on), then choose Next: blocks and fabrics.

Layouts of square blocks

These seven take any square block from the library or your own. Each has a Block size (6″, 8″, 9″, 10″, 12″ and 14″, or Other for any size from 2″ to 24″ in eighths), Blocks across and Blocks down (up to 60 each), and borders.

• Side by side: nothing more to set.
• With sashing: the Sashing width, 1″, 1½″, 2″ and 3″. Cornerstones sit where the strips cross.
• On point: the blocks are turned 45°, with plain squares between and setting triangles around the edge. The facts say how big a block is corner to corner, to the nearest ⅛″. Setting and corner triangles has the cutting sizes.
• Alternating: your block fills every other square and the squares between stay plain. In the third step, Alternate two blocks puts a second block between instead.
• Columns: Strips between the columns (2″, 3″, 4″ and 6″) and Blocks in the columns: Straight or On point. This is the strippy quilt.
• Half drop: every other column drops by half a block. The half blocks at the ends of a column are cut as halves, and the facts count them.
• Medallion: one block in the middle (12″, 16″, 18″, 20″ and 24″) and up to 6 Rounds of borders, each plain, with corner squares, or pieced. It starts with four rounds: corner squares, a sawtooth, a plain round and a checkerboard.

Diamonds and hexagons

These four are made of their own shapes, so the third step is Fabrics alone, and their sizes are set the way their rulers and papers are measured.

• Hexagons: By hand, over papers (sized by Each side: ¾″, 1″, 1¼″ and 1½″, as papers are sold) or By machine (sized Across the flats: 2″, 3″, 4″, 5″ and 6″, as hexagon rulers measure). Colored as: Flowers or One by one.
• Triangles: Each row, high (3″, 3½″, 4″, 5″ and 6″) and how many Rows.
• Tumbling blocks: Each diamond, high (2″, 2½″, 3″, 3½″ and 4″) and Cubes across.
• One big star: Strips, cut (1½″, 2″, 2½″ and 3″) and Diamonds a side (3 to 9). The star is sized by its strips, and a border fills it out to the bed size.

Hexagons, triangles and tumbling blocks also ask about the Edges: Trimmed straight, or the shapes’ own Zigzag. More in Diamonds, hexagons and 60° grids.

Change the layout later

1. Open the quilt in the designer. On the right, beside Layout, choose Change the layout.

2. Under Set, choose Side by side, Sashing, On point, Alternating, Columns or Half drop. Change Across, Down and the Block size (6″, 8″, 9″ and 12″ or Other) in the same panel.

   

3. The blocks you placed stay where they were wherever they still fit. New squares get the quilt’s first block.

A medallion is side by side with one block once it’s made, and its rounds are its borders. Hexagons, triangles, tumbling blocks and one big star keep their own layout: their Change the layout opens the same choices New quilt has for them.

On an iPad or a phone

If it doesn’t look right

• Make my quilt waits, with a reason. A layout with more squares than the designer can hold, or a pieced border that can’t fit (a checkerboard around an odd length, say), says why. Try bigger blocks, fewer of them, or another border width.
• A hexagon block won’t go in a square layout. Blocks drawn on 60° grids go in a hexagon layout, as tumbling blocks do.
• The size is a little off what you chose. Layouts use whole blocks. See Make a quilt bigger or smaller.

Checked against the app on October 26, 2026