Anvil for my Nephew

I've been working on gift quilts for my youngest nephew and nieces. The quilts are now in their hands, so I can now share my work without spoiling the surprise. 


My nephew enjoys metalworking on his forge. When I decided to make him a quilt, the traditional Anvil block seemed appropriate.

I wanted to make a bold, geometric quilt--not a fussy one. For this reason, I chose to go with only two fabrics on the top--a struggle for a scrappy quilter like me!


The basic units are 3.5" and 6.5"--this creates a 12.5" block.

The block is easy to assemble:

Sew a 3.5" HST to a 3.5" solid light square

Sew a 3.5" HST to a dark solid square

Sew the two units together. You will need 2 of these four-patch units per block.

Sew the unit to a 6.5" HST to form a half-block.

Join the half-blocks to make a complete Anvil block.

In this quilt, I used 36 blocks to create a square quilt approximately 74" x 74" when finished and bound. Even numbers of blocks for each row and column made the overall pattern seem more complete to me. Experiment with your blocks to determine if you wish to make it differently.

Other layouts are possible with this block:

This layout turns all the scrappy anvils in one direction and adds sashing between the blocks. (Click the photo to find the original site of the image.)

Again, here the anvils all run in one direction this time without sashing between the blocks. (Click the photo to find the original site of the image.)

I chose the layout I did because I like the secondary pattern that is created by the light-colored fabric.

I backed this quilt with a fabric featuring American flags.

The binding is the same blue fabric as I used on the front.

My nephew is interested in the Navy, so I thought of using backing fabric printed with semaphore flags. The problem is, I don't read semaphore, so I wouldn't know what those flags were saying.I didn't want to give him a quilt where the flags spelled out "You are a scurvy rat" or "Your granny sucks eggs"!  :)



Thanks for visiting and happy sewing.


I'm linking to Myra's Busy Hands Quilts Finished or Not Friday and Fiber Tuesday 79 at The Quilting Room with Mel.