Easy 4-Patch Baby Quilt in Three Colors

Today is easy 4-patch baby quilt tutorial day!

Baby quilts are one of my favorite types of quilts to make.  They are slightly smaller than a throw sized quilt, and much, much smaller than a bed sized quilt.  They go together much more quickly than a larger quilt (duh!) and can often be completed in a weekend or two.  Plus, the colors and fabrics for babies are way more fun than the colors and fabrics for adults!

When the opportunity came to make a baby quilt for a friend’s baby shower, I knew I wanted to do three things.

Meeting all three requirements – I present the Easy 4-Patch Baby Quilt in Three Colors Tutorial!

Looking through my stash, I first picked orange, then grey, and finally fleshed out my vision with a bunch of soft blues.

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To make a baby-sized version of this quilt that finishes at 40” by 48” you need a minimum of 30 strips of fabric.  However, 30 is not easily divisible by 4, so the actual fabric requirements are 32 strips of fabric, cut 2½” by WOF.

Fabric Requirements:

2½” strips of fabric

          8 orange

          8 blue

          16 grey

Making 4-patches

Match a grey and a blue strip, right sides together, and sew along the length of the strips with a ¼” seam allowance.  Always sew with the grey strip on top.

If you are like me, and working with fabric from your stash, some of your fabric strips may be a full 42” in length, and other may be shorter because they are scraps or came from fat quarters.  That’s totally fine.  If cutting strips from fat quarters, cut two strips for every one needed in the fabric requirements. 

Sew, cut (directions are a couple of paragraphs down) and then repeat with the remainder of the strip.

This is a great tutorial for making use of chain piecing, when you just sew strip after strip after strip, without stopping to cut the thread.  As you can see, I sewed my grey and blue first, and then my grey and orange, which is why there is so much orange at the top of my sewn pile.

Once all strips are sewn, move on to ironing.  Press all seams towards the grey fabric.  This will help future seams to nestle together, and create nice, crisp points.

Lay a blue/grey strip pair right side up on your cutting mat, blue on top.

Then lay a second blue/grey strip pair on top of the first, right side down, so that right sides are together, and nestle the two seams together along the whole length of the strip set pairs.

Trim off the selvage, and then cut a 2½” piece.

Repeat, to cut as many 2½” pieces as you can.  If your fabric is 40”-42” you should be able to get 16 cuts from each strip set pair. Use the edges of the strips, as well as the seam in the middle with the lines of your rotary ruler to make sure you are getting a straight cut each and every time.

Keeping the pieces together so that the seam stays tightly nestled, pin the seam, and sew along the side with a ¼” seam allowance.  Press.

Easy, peasy 4-patch in two colors!  We’re well on our way to making a 4-patch baby quilt!

Repeat to make 60 grey/blue 4-patches.  You have enough fabric to make 64, but you only need 60.  (Remember, we added extra fabric at the beginning, to make our number divisible by 4.)

Follow the same steps above to make 60 grey/orange 4-patches.

All the wonderful 4-patch goodness!  Seriously, this photo is just so pretty!  And this 4-patch baby quilt is going to be just as pretty.  Well, it’s for a baby boy, it’s going to be handsome.

Making 4-Patch Quilt Blocks

Start with one 4-patch of each color combination.  With the blue 4-patch on the left, and the orange on the right, make sure that the seam allowance on the blue is on the bottom side and the seam allowance on the orange is pointing up. Both 4-patches should have a gray square in the upper left corner.

Flip the orange over onto the blue, so that right sides are together, and pin the seam on the right.  The seam should nestle tightly, as long as the seam allowances are arranged correctly.

Pin, sew and press towards the orange side.

Repeat to make 60.  Again, chain piecing is awesome!

Now, you have a choice.

You can turn your pieces so that you have all the orange squares making a diagonal through the block.

Or, you can turn your pieces so that you have all the blue squares making a diagonal through the block.

Whichever you choose, sew your blocks together, pinning all seams and using a ¼” seam allowance.  Press.  Make 30 blocks.

I went with the blue diagonal.  But really, either way will work just fine.  Just make them all the same and you’ll be set.

Making an Easy 4-Patch Baby Quilt

Sew blocks into pairs, and pairs into 5 columns of 6 blocks each.  Sew columns together to make a darling baby quilt that is 5 rows by 6 columns, and finishes at 40” by 48”.  Make sure to pin every single seam before sewing.

Woah, woah, woah!  “Sew your blocks into columns?!?!” What foolishness is this?

Truth- it doesn’t really make a difference if you sew your blocks into rows or if you sew your blocks into columns.  I normally sew into rows, and then sew rows together to make the quilt top.

But with a 5 by 6 layout, I like sewing into columns first.  That way I can sew every single block into pairs, without having to stop and count to make sure I have the right number of pairs.  There are an odd number of blocks in the rows, there are an even number in the columns.  That’s really the only reason to sew into columns. 

Isn’t it adorable?

Baste, quilt, bind as desired and give to your favoritest (I know, I know.  The grammar police are not needed.) baby, or the newest baby in your life, or make extra blocks to make it larger and keep it for yourself!