Easy Baby Animal Quilt Tutorial

This quick baby animal quilt tutorial is both a quick (short) tutorial, and a quick-to-make baby quilt.  That’s the best kind of baby quilt!

Baby Animal Fabric

I had these adorable elephants on parade and other savannah animal prints, but only a tiny little bit from a scrap sale, so I added a bunch of coordinating prints.

Some of the animal print was already cut into triangles, so I started there with planning my blocks and dimensions, and worked towards the other fabrics.  I started by turning these into half square triangles, that measure 4” finished.  Half square triangles can by made by following this HST tutorial.

My intention was to make one 8” block that was a pinwheel.  But, there was no way I could turn the parts of the pinwheel to get the animals to all be the same direction.

This was the only way I could the pieces turned without some of the animals sideways or upside down. But, I didn’t really like it all that much!

So, I decided to just leave my half square triangles independent, and to start working with the other fabric.

8″ Quilt Blocks

I pulled a whole bunch of coordinating solids and blenders.  I cut them into 2 ½” strips (no photos) and made most of them into 4-patches.  To make a 4-patch, sew two strips together with a ¼” seam allowance.  Sub-cut all strips into 2½” by 4½” units.  Sew two units together by pinning the center seam, and sew with a ¼” seam allowance.

Some of the animal print was large enough to cut into 4½” squares, as was some of the coordinating fabrics.

At this point in the quilting process, all pieces (squares, 4-patches and half square triangles) were 4½”.

Sewing pieces into pairs, and then pairs into squares, results in 8½” squares.

Some squares were made of little squares and big squares.

Others had a half square triangle thrown in.

A few were made entirely of small squares, also called a 16-patch.

Easy Baby Animal Quilt

I made a total of 30 blocks, and placed them in a 5 by 6 layout, for a darling baby animal quilt that finishes at 40” by 48”.  Quilts can me made smaller or larger by making fewer or additional blocks.

I really like the aqua blue, grassy green, dark brown and soft purple palette that came from pulling colors from the animal fabrics.

Like I said, a quick and easy baby animal quilt tutorial.  This is how I do a lot of my quilting, making the pieces that I have work together.  2½” pieces sewn together equal 4½” in width (unfinished) and 4½” pair together to become 8½”.   Mix and match with what you’ve got, until it adds up to a quilt.