Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block Tutorial

I used a scrappy 5 inch quilt block and a slightly less scrappy 5 inch quilt block to throw together a quick baby quilt and empty my scrap box of blue scraps. All the other colors, they are still in the scrap box and it is still over flowing, but the blues are now empty. Woo hoo!

I toyed with the idea of making the quilt entirely from 1” quilt squares (cut size 1½”) but then I came to my senses and realized that that was a TERRIBLE idea!

But, I still had lots of little scraps to use up, so I made Block A with 10 little squares and Block B without.

And that is what led to these scrappy little guys each measuring as a 5 inch quilt block.

Strip Piecing

The first step to making a Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block is to cut some blue scraps 2½” wide and some low volume (white, cream, etc.) scraps 1½” wide. The length of the scraps doesn’t really matter at this point. As long as they are at least 5½” long they will work for this quilt block, and if they are 11” or longer than strip piecing makes everything go very quickly.

Sew the blue strip to the low volume strip using a ¼” seam allowance.

Press towards the blue strip, and then sub-cut the strip set at 5½”.

Now, the total number of these depends on the finished quilt size. I made my baby quilt from a total of 80 blocks, set 8 by 10, for a quilt size that measures 40” by 50”. If you want a larger or smaller quilt, or if you have more or less scraps to work with you, you’ll need a different number of blocks.

The Scrappy Side of the Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block

For one block, and one block ONLY, I cut 10 little 1½” squares individually.

This did give me the freedom to play around with which fabrics to place where in the block, but those are tiny little pieces and I certainly didn’t want to work with pieces that small for the entire quilt. Strip piecing is the way to go!

I sewed each of those 10 blocks into 5 pairs. And this is where strip piecing becomes handy. I didn’t take a photo of it, but you can sew 1½” strips of any length into pairs, and then sub-cut them into these same 1½” pairs.

The pairs are then sewn into groups of four and six, and then together into a group of ten which measures 2½” wide by 5½” tall.

Now for the total number of these little guys to make, I had a lot of 1½” scraps, but not enough to make 80 blocks. So I made 40 blocks with these little 10-patches and I made the other 40 blocks substituting one 2½” by 5½” fabric. Thus, a Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block and a Slightly Less Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block.

Putting a Scrappy 5 Inch Quilt Block Together

Take one strip set from the first portion of the directions and one scrappy 10-patch from the second part of the directions.

Sew the 10-patch to the low volume side of the strip set and press towards the 10-patch. I know, there’s more seams to press that way, but since the center skinny strip is low volume, this way you are less likely to have any darker blue bits showing through.

If you have enough little scraps, you can make all 80 of your blocks like this, I made 40 like this, and then made the other 40 with a single fabric on both sides of skinny low volume strip.

These blocks will be turned 90* in the quilt, so that the scrappiest pieces will be on the top.

Alternating horizontal and vertical block alignment, sew 20 pairs with scrappier block to the left, these will go in the odd rows, and sew 20 pairs with the scrappier block to the right, these will go in even rows. This way, the small, scrappy 10-patches will always be at the top of the block in all rows of the quilt.