Storm at Sea Quilt Pattern

Part 1: Block Basics

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The Storm at Sea quilt pattern makes for an exciting quilt—full of movement—all due to the juxtaposition of square and rectangular blocks.

Storm at Sea quilt pattern design and downloadable patterns

Your eyes try to tell you there's curved piecing, but there's not a curved seam in the quilt, not anywhere!

Simple enough for the confident beginning quilter. Just download our free paper piecing quilt block patterns. (The link is near the bottom of this page.)

Feeling more adventurous? Then download coloring pages of straight and/or on point layouts of the quilt and design to your heart's content!

For even more inspiration, there's books on the Storm at Sea pattern to peruse.

And if paperpiecing's not your thing, there are rulers and templates that help make the process rotary cutter friendly.

Let's get started.

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All the quilt block and layout illustrations on this page were created in Electric Quilt 7 (or EQ7 for short).

I love this program. It's easy to use and a brilliant design tool—allowing you to change fabrics and layouts with a click of your mouse.

I heartily recommend it to anyone who's interested—three thumbs up if I had an extra one!

If you've got a MAC, there's a version for you, too!

The Building Blocks

The Storm at Sea quilt block itself is composed of two separate block units, a square in a square (in two sizes) and a diamond in a rectangle. It is shown below in one of two ways, each drawn on a different grid.

We've kept the first illustrations simple by using just two colors. But as you'll see later, you needn't limit your design efforts to just two.

Block A: 3x3 grid

Block B: 4x4 grid

Storm at Sea Quilts made with Block A

This first quilt layout is a straight set using Block A. Note how the lines of the quilt pattern fool your eye into thinking there are pieced curves. Extra 'diamond in a rectangle' and 'square in a square' quilt blocks are needed to complete the design.

6 x 8 blocks

This next quilt is exactly the same layout as the first, except that the colors have been swapped—what was blue is now white and what was white is now blue.

6 x 8 blocks

Now take our first coloring of Block A and set it in an on point quilt layout. The piecing immediately seems more complicated, the curved illusion more prominent, but it's still the same straight line seams in simple blocks.

Storm at Sea quilt in an on-point layout

5 x 7 blocks

Storm at Sea Quilts made with Block B

As with Block A, this block also creates the illusion of curved pieced where none exists. The designs look more intricate than the previous quilts due to the additional pieces in each block.

Our first example is laid out in a straight set.

5 x 6 blocks

And now showing the same block, same setting with the two colors reversed. A simple change, quite different results.

Storm at Sea quilt variation using Block B

5 x 6 blocks

Finally showing our Block B set on point in the second block coloring.

5 x 6 blocks

When set as a two color quilt, the colors are placed exactly the same for all the 'diamond in a rectangle' blocks. The same goes for the 'square in a square' blocks, regardless of which size it is. That's a nice simplification to the piecing.

Dial up the Drama!

Now let's have some fun with the color.

We now add red and green to our previously colored blue and white Block B. The result is the block shown to the right.

The basic 'rectangle in a diamond' and 'square in a square' quilt blocks are the same in every other way.

Now let's lay it out in straight rows...

7 x 7 blocks

...and now set on point. Note we've reduced the number of rows and columns so that you can see the design better.

5 x 5 blocks

The additional colors really change the 'feel' of the quilt. It almost looks like the knitting patterns called 'intarsia' or a woven tapestry.

And to think, all this is from simple paper pieced quilt blocks!

If you're ready for your own Storm at Sea Quilt...

...we have several free goodies for planning and stitching your next Storm at Sea quilt.

Storm at Sea Paper Piecing blocks

You'll need the most current version of Adobe installed on your computer to download the pattern.

On the Adobe Print Menu page, under 'Page Size and Handling' set 'Custom Scale' to 100% before printing for accurate results. Click here to see what it looks like on the Print Menu page.

After printing, use the 1" square graphic on the printed pages to confirm they are printed accurately.

Click here to download your own copies to stitch.

For quilts based on Block A, you need to print one set of these two pages for each block in your quilt. To complete the quilt print an extra 'Page 2 of 2'. You will end up with one extra 3"x6" diamond in a rectangle block pattern.

Storm at Sea Coloring Pages

To help design your Storm at Sea Quilt, print one, some or all of our coloring pages.