Moda Fabrics Bandana Quilt - Downloadable PDF

Moda Fabrics Bandana Quilt – Free Downloadable PDF Pattern Summary

The Bandana Quilt is a fun and graphic quilting project designed by Alexia Marcelle Abegg for Moda Fabrics under the Ruby Star Society label. This free downloadable PDF pattern guides quilters through constructing a bold, bandana-inspired quilt top using large printed panel centers combined with pieced half-square-triangle (HST) accent blocks. The result is a visually striking quilt that celebrates the iconic bandana motif in a fresh, modern quilted format.

What Is Being Made

The finished project is a bandana quilt — a full quilt top assembled from a combination of large bandana panel fabric centers and surrounding pieced HST units. The design is built around four main blocks, each featuring one bandana panel center framed by carefully arranged HST units in four distinct combination groupings (labeled A, B, C, and D). The four blocks are then joined in rows of two to complete the quilt top, which is then basted, quilted, and bound to finish.

Fabric and Materials

This pattern is specifically designed to feature the Bandana Panel from the Golden Hour fabric collection by Alexia Marcelle Abegg, produced under the Ruby Star Society imprint for Moda Fabrics. The bandana panel pieces serve as the large, decorative focal centers of each block. Additional coordinating fabrics from the collection are used to cut the squares needed for constructing the half-square triangles. As a quilting project, this pattern calls for quilting cotton fabric, along with standard quilting supplies including batting and binding material. No yarn, knitting needles, or crochet hooks are involved — this is a fabric and thread-based quilting project.

Techniques Used

• Half-Square Triangle (HST) Construction: The foundational piecing technique in this pattern. HSTs are made two at a time using the classic drawn-diagonal method — two squares are placed right sides together (RST), a diagonal line is drawn on the wrong side of the lighter square, and the pair is stitched a quarter inch away from the line on both sides before being cut apart along the drawn line. This efficient method yields two identical HST units per pair of squares.
• Pressing Seams Open: All HST seams are pressed open to reduce bulk and ensure flat, accurate piecing — an important step for achieving crisp points and corners throughout the quilt.
• HST Grouping and Combination Piecing: Once individual HSTs are made, they are grouped into sets of four and assembled into four distinct unit combinations — A, B, C, and D — with four units made of each combination (sixteen units total). This step requires careful attention to orientation to achieve the correct visual pattern.
• Row-Based Block Assembly: Each of the four main quilt blocks is assembled by joining the bandana center, the four HST combination units, and additional individual HSTs into rows, with seams pressed in opposite directions per row to allow seams to nest cleanly when rows are joined.
• Block Joining: The four completed blocks are joined in rows of two, with careful attention paid to matching both the bandana motifs and the corner HST positions to the layout illustration provided in the pattern.
• Basting, Quilting, and Binding: The pattern instructs quilters to baste, quilt, and bind the finished quilt top as desired, leaving the quilting design and binding style open to personal preference.

Stitches and Seam Allowances

• Quarter-inch seam allowance is used throughout all piecing steps unless otherwise noted — the standard seam allowance for quilting projects.
• Straight machine stitching is used for all seaming, including the two lines of stitching flanking the diagonal line during HST construction.

Cutting Instructions Overview

The pattern provides specific cutting quantities for each fabric combination needed to produce the required number of HSTs. A total of varying quantities of HSTs are made across multiple fabric pairings (quantities specified in the PDF as 6, 6, 8, 4, 8, 6, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 4, 4, and 6 per pairing). All HSTs are trimmed to 5½ inches square after pressing, with care taken to ensure the seam still intersects both corners after trimming. Sixteen HSTs remain as individual