Two Ways to Make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt

There are many ways to make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt and today I am going to share with you two ways to make the blocks that make this awesome quilt that can be entirely scrappy or completely coordinated.

But first, the color palette!

A Scrappy Quilt from Citrus Stars Leftovers

Last winter I bought this citrus bundle from Fabric Bubb and made the cover quilt for the Falling Stars Quilt Pattern.

This quilt uses the scraps from that project, along with a navy on white dot for the center of each block and lots of other prints from my scrap box. Interestingly, this quilt got greener as it went as I ran low on strips and pulled more out of the scrap box and my stash.

Ways to Make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt – The 36-Patch

This version of the Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt block starts with 36 individual squares, each 2” and six each per six fabrics.

Start with a polka dot square in the upper left and place each of the five other fabrics below.

Then, in the second column, scoot the polka dot square down one, and then fill in four of the other five fabrics, and put the one from the bottom of column one in place at the top of column two.

Continue the pattern to make six columns of six squares, always making sure the focus fabric (in my case – navy polka dots on a white background) runs down along the diagonal.

Sew the green squares to the bottoms of polka dot squares, there are five pairs to sew.

Press towards the green squares. Pressing is going to be an important part of this tutorial as it will help the blocks go together better in a later step.

Jump down to the next pair of squares in the first column and sew the top of the yellow squares to the bottom of the light green plaid squares.

And then, you got it! Sew the tops of the blue stripes to the bottoms of the orange squares.

Press all towards the bottom of each pair.

Sew the 6 squares together to make 6 columns. This time, press each seam towards the top of the column.

Pinning at every seam, sew columns together working right to left. That is, sew column two to column one, column four to column three and column six to column five.

Then, sew the column pairs to the next pair, this time working from left to right.

And that is the first way to make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt Block!

Ways to Make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt – Using Fabric Strips

These quilt blocks can be made more quickly by using fabric strips instead of individual squares.

Start with six fabric strips, each 2” by 12¼”. It is completely irrelevant that the white polka dot at the top is a little bit longer than the others. That’s what happens when using fabrics from the scrap box and just means more of that one will be trimmed away later. It won’t impact block construction in any way.

Of course, if you want to use other block sizes, you certainly can, but it will affect the size of the fabric strips. Check out this previous Scrappy Trip Tutorial for a quick guide to cutting sizes for other block sizes.

Sew the six fabric strips into three pairs, always pressing towards the fabric strip that will be lower in the grouping. In this grouping of six fabrics, that means pressing the white fabric towards the green diagonal stripe, the blue loops towards the tan fabric and the green tonal towards the green loops.

Sew the three strip sets together, this time pressing towards the fabric higher in the grouping.

Sub cut the strip set into six columns, each 2” wide.

Cutting Apart the Columns

Leave column one as is. Cut apart the seam between squares 5 and 6 (at the bottom!) of column two and move the bottom square (green loops) to the top of column two.

Cut apart the seam between squares 4 and 5 at the bottom of column three and move the two squares (green loops and green tonal) to the top of the column.

Repeat with the remaining three columns, always moving one seam higher with each subsequent column.

Sew the new columns back together, in this example that means always sewing the green loops to the white polka dots.

At this point, the two ways to make a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt block have come back together and the directions from the previous section apply here as well.

Sew the columns into pairs and sew the pairs into the quilt block.

A Third Way to Make a Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt!

So, this tutorial had exactly two ways to make a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt block.

I didn’t lie.

But!

There are actually more ways to make the quilt blocks.

What if you wanted to use 5 fabrics per block instead of 6?

Or use fabric strips in some size other than 2”? For example, jelly roll strips would be a quick way to get this quilt started!

You can check out a previous Scrappy Trip tutorial of mine, including why it is so, so important to use a consistent seam allowance at this link, it’s got all sorts of varieties for Scrappy Trip Around the World quilts.

Putting It All Together – Making the Scrappy Trip Quilt

My version of this quilt measures 45” by 54” and each block is 9” square. I made 30 blocks and set them in 6 rows of 5 blocks.

For a larger quilt, make more blocks.

Every second block is turned on its side. Since I used the same fabric as the center diagonal of every block, this layout makes those polka dots zig zag across the entire quilt.

You can absolutely make this quilt without a constant fabric in each block.

You’ll just have less of a zig zag and it’s possible that that design choice won’t pass inspection.