Scrappy Blue Baby Quilt Tutorial

Today’s quilt tutorial is a Scrappy Blue Baby Quilt Tutorial.  This tutorial will help you to pull out your scraps of all sizes (even as small as 1½”!!!), sort colors, and make use of fabric that you’ve already got.

My scrap box has been overflowing again lately.  Honestly, I don’t think there’s been a time in the last decade when the scrap box was not stuffed full.  I mean, really. Take a look at some of these other scrappy quilts I’ve made recently. I think cleaning out the scrap box has been on my list of goals every year that I’ve been blogging.

I pulled out the blues, yellows, purples and some blacks, grays and whites.

That left behind a ton of scraps.  Some are already itty, bitty scraps sewn together, and the rest I sorted by color, put into Ziploc bags and squeezed out as much air as I possibly could.

Hopefully this makes future scrappy projects less daunting, which may mean they get tackled sooner rather than getting put off.  But for now, back to those blues, purples and yellows.  Here is a sneak peak at where this scrappy blue baby quilt tutorial is headed.

This quilt is made up of a bunch of 8” blocks, in a variety of different scrappy ways.

Quick Blocks

Blocks 1 and 2 were super easy.  I already had these fabrics sewn together, leftover from a table runner I made one Christmas for my UW Husky loving brother.

Add a strip of blue along one side, to get it up to the width needed.

I cut it down to 8½” inches, and the first two blocks were done.

Now, there are a million definitions of what qualifies as a scrap.  I know some quilters who think everything less than a fat quarter is a scrap.  That is NOT how I roll. 

I sort my scraps by width, and don’t worry about the length.  These scraps are 1½”, 2” and 2½” wide, some are very long, up to 42”, some are just 2”-3” long.

16-Patch Blocks

I decided this time around to start with the 2” scraps.

I sewed all of the 2” scraps into pairs, and then set them up with a second pair, and sub-cut as many 2” pieces as I could

Then, I sewed the pairs into 4-patches.  Make sure to pin those seams!

Next, I sewed the 4-patches into 16-patches, that measure 6½” square.

To get my blocks up to 8½”, I used the 1½” strips that were really long.  I cut two pieces 6½” to sew to the sides of the blocks, and two pieces 8½” to sew to the top and bottom of the block, to create an 8½” square.

When I started, I didn’t really have a good idea of how much fabric I had to work with, but I ended up with enough to make 15 blocks like this.  I decided to make my quilt 30 blocks total, and have this design be every other block, like a checkerboard.

Scrappy Blocks

13 blocks to go, and lots and lots of scraps still to use!

After using up the 2” scraps, and the longest 1½” scraps, I turned my attention to what remained of the skinniest scraps.

Like the 16-patches before, I started by sewing pairs and then making 4-patches.

Then I sewed the 4-patches into pairs, and the pairs into 16-patches.  It’s really not that hard to work with these tiny pieces, just pin every single seam, and use an accurate cutting and ¼” seam allowance.

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This little block measures 4½”. 

I made some of these little blocks with 2½” squares.

Some were a mix of 1½” scraps and 2½” scraps.

I even managed to sneak in some leftover half square triangles.

Combining four of these will result in a block that measures 8½”.

You can make your scrappy quilt using any combo of these blocks.  You can use as many big or little scraps as you have in your scrap box.

My scraps ended up making 15 blocks that were 16-patches inside of a frame, and 15 blocks that were a variety of other bits and pieces.

Make as many blocks as you want, or that you have fabric available for. Really, this Scrappy Blue Baby Quilt Tutorial could read as Scrappy {Fill in the Color} {Any Size} Quilt Tutorial.  My 30 blocks are laid out in a 5 blocks by 6 rows pattern, and my quilt finishes at 40” by 48” which I think is just the perfect size for a baby quilt.