Scrappy 4-Patch Quilt Tutorial

Scrappy quilts are the best kind of quilt to make!  This scrappy 4-patch quilt tutorial is no exception!

You can’t go wrong with lots and lots of 4-patches. Especially not when there are bits of gold scattered throughout to add some sparkle and pizazz!

This quilt started it’s life as the leftover fabrics from a Hexie in a Hexie quilt I made last winter.

I took out the lightest neutrals (light background but too busy to be the background for this particular quilt block), and then added in some other light neutrals to achieve the palette I wanted.

This quilt will make a baby quilt that measures approximately 40” by 51” and uses 143 4-patch blocks.  For a larger quilt, you will need more blocks, and therefore, more fabric.

Cutting Instructions

There are several different options for cutting fabric for the Scrappy 4-patch quilt tutorial and your needs will depend on the scrappiness level of your quilt.

More Scrappy

If you are making the most scrappiest quilt, every single square made from a different fabric, you will need 286 neutral squares and 286 colorful squares, all measuring 2½” square.

If you are making this kind of quilt, I want to see photos!  That is more scrappy and uses smaller pieces than what I tend to aim for, but they always turn out so beautiful and I definitely want to see your creations.

Less Scrappy

If you are making the least scrappy version of this quilt tutorial, using just two fabrics, you’ll want to cut strips of fabric 2½” wide by width of fabric (WOF) and you’ll need 18 strips of your neutral fabric and 18 strips of your colorful fabric.

Somewhere in the Middle

My scrappiness level is somewhere in the middle of those two options presented above. 

Some of my fabric is WOF, some is around 10”, some is individual squares.

Whatever works for you, cut it down to 2½” wide and then you want to sew the colorful strips to the neutral strips.  I’m going to talk more in a bit about how I stay organized with which direction I sewed my pieces together, but for this step, I always sewed the colorful strip to the neutral strip, and I pressed them all towards the colorful strip.

Since some of my strips are different lengths, some of my strip pairs are a little wonky looking.  That’s okay.  I’ll just keep the little leftover bits with the individual 2½” squares and work them into the blocks that way.

Making Scrappy 4-Patch Blocks

Match the seam allowance from two strip pairs.  Since both were pressed towards the colorful strip, the seams nestle nicely. 

Sub cut as many 2½” units as you can from your strips.  If your strip is 40”+, you can get up to 16 units.    I was able to get 5 from this particular combo.

If you are brave (or maybe reckless?), you can sew these units together as is.  I suggest pinning that seam allowance first though.

Sew the blocks together using a ¼” seam allowance and press the seam to one side.  Making these blocks is that easy!

Staying Organized While Sewing and Pressing Quilt Blocks

While making the blocks for this scrappy 4-patch quilt tutorial really are just that easy, I am going to add a few extra steps here for those of you who are new to quilting, or looking for a new or better organization system.

Sewing machines are great, as is fabric.  But fabric has some stretch to it, and some strategies for using sewing machines can exacerbate the stretch in a way you don’t want it to.

Here is my system for staying organized to keep the stretching and warping to a minimum.

As I mentioned above in the strip piecing section, I always sew the colorful strip to the neutral strip.  This is part of staying organized and preventing stretching or warping.

If I was going to sew my pairs into larger strips sets of four or eight, I would continue that pattern of always sewing the colorful strip to the neutral strip.

Since these strip sets have been cut down into smaller pieces, I get to start over with a different form of staying organized.

I like string piecing for several reasons.

It’s faster to not stop and start in between each piece.

Less thread is wasted.

It keeps all of the pieces turned the same direction they were when they were sewn.  Up is up and down is down.

Cutting – But Still Organized

I sew a bunch of blocks without cutting them apart.

When I am ready to cut them apart, I cut the one most recently sewn, but leave the rest of the string uncut.

I can spread the whole string out, and all blocks still have the side that was against the feed dog while sewing facing down.

I cut every 4^th block away, and add it to the stack.  That way I have four stacks of a bunch of blocks, all still down side down and upside up.

Then I cut through the remaining bits of thread holding the blocks together and gather my smaller stacks into one or two larger stacks.

Now they are ready to be moved to the ironing board and pressed.  This means I am always pressing to the same direction, which will tell me when using blocks later which side was against the feed dogs so that I can continue to stay organized.

This what the back of the blocks look like.  For the moment, you can ignore the fact that this block has been pinned to another for the next sewing step. 

I sewed all of the strip sets with the neutral against the feed dogs and the colorful strip on the top.  I pressed all towards the colorful strip.  You can see here, from the seams, that all of this means I’m alternating my sewing which is the thing that prevents warp.

Alternating Sewing When Putting Blocks Together

The next step of sewing the quilt will be to start sewing the blocks into pairs. 

Guess what? 

We want to alternate the sewing again!

Now we’re focused on the horizontal seam in the center.

It’s pressed up on the block you can see, and pressed down on the block that you cannot see.

Preventing stretch and warp, one seam at a time.  An added bonus?  Those seams nestle together better this way, which makes the points extra crisp!

Turning Quilt Blocks into a Quilt Top

Now that 143 blocks have been made, and you’re more organized than when you started, it’s time to turn the blocks into the quilt top.

Pick two blocks that have a fun variety of prints and colors.

Nestle the seams together (remember those arrows from the section above) and pin two blocks together.

Sew the two blocks into a pair.  Continue to use the tips from above for pressing seams and keeping orientation consistent.

Set 17 blocks aside, sew the rest into pairs.

Making Diagonals

Because this quilt is set on point (the blocks are actually diamonds rather than squares), this quilt goes together with diagonals, rather than rows or columns.

Start sewing singles and pairs into other groupings, including singles, pairs, threes, fours and fives. 

These pieces will be sewn together into longer groupings.

You’ll need a total of 2 singles, 2 threes, 2 fives, 2 sevens, 2 nines, 2 elevens, 2 thirteens and 3 fifteens.

I find it’s more satisfying to work with the longer pieces first, so I work from the middle of the quilt out towards the corners, but you can certainly start at the outer edges and work your way in towards the middle.

Place the three diagonals of 15 blocks onto the design wall or design floor. 

Pinning at all seams, sew the three diagonals together to make the center of the quilt.

Working out from the middle, the next diagonals will be the ones made of 13 (one above and one below the current layout), then 11, then 9 and so on, all the way down to the single blocks that will make the top left and bottom right corners.

I didn’t take photos of the remainder of the block layout. Here is a TERRIBLE drawing to show you the first of the next steps.  There are 13 “blocks” there. Next you’ll do the one with 11, and so on; repeating the same steps on the other side of the quilt center.

And there you have it, a completed, scrappy, 4-patch quilt tutorial!

You can trim your edges to straight before basting the quilt.  I prefer to baste and quilt and then trim.

A Scrappy 4-Patch Quilt!

I love how the neutrals (none of which are solids, and some of which have sparkly gold accents) help to balance out the busy florals from this fabric collection. 

Since there were so many small pieces in this quilt, I quilted more densely than is typical for me.  I used straight lines, and they are about ½” apart.  Ish.

I think I might love the back of this quilt even more than the top!  It’s flannel, and the colors just match splendidly!

I normally use Scrappy Quilt Backings, so I was extra happy to find this perfect fabric, no seams required!

You can see the quilting detail when zoomed in.

Not all of my quilts make their way into my Etsy Shop for sale, but this one has!