I love making these little quilts! I’m glad I finally started, even though it took me a while. Mary has been making them for years, and you can find many ideas on her blog at this link. If you scroll to the bottom, she shows how to bundle them for donation.
I now call them “Huggables” because my quilt guild is helping to make them. The guild also has other small quilt projects, like a yearly challenge or themed quilts for events. Giving this project a name ensures the quilts paired with stuffed dolls and animals are not confused with any of our other little quilts.
This little quilt is loosely based on the pattern by the Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilt pattern, Brick Street. This version finishes at 23″ square.
I sliced off a quirky 3 1/4″ strip from the cute unicorn print and from the pink calico. Then, I cross-cut the blocks to 5 1/4″ because, let’s be real, who doesn’t love a good challenge with odd dimensions? I managed to squeeze out 8 blocks from a single 42″ strip set of each print (and yes, it also works with fat quarters if you by cutting two strips each ).
At first, I had thought the plan would be to cut 3 1/2″ strips and 5 1/2″ blocks, but alas, that plan would only yield 7 blocks from each strip set! Not the 8 I was dreaming of… since most of my ideas initially start while I’m sleeping. And, yes I do wake up disappointed that the quilt isn’t even begun, much less finished like I’d dreamed.
Sure, I had enough fabric for a second strip set, but instead of tossing in half-finished strip sets into the scrap bin, I decided to channel my inner mathematician for a quick re-calculation. If ya wanna be a quilter – you better love math! 😊
This is my rough diagram. If you notice, the borders were added counter-clockwise rather than sides and top/bottom pairs:
- Right side
- Top
- Left side
- Bottom
The first seam is a partial seam. Once you add the last border (on the bottom) you go back and complete that first seam on the right side border.
It also allowed me to maximize the 2 1/2″ strips for the border since all four borders were cut from only two strips. (Luckily, my border fabric was 43″ wide.)
Time to Quilt 