Curved strip-piecing using Island Vibes fabric creates a sweet baby quilt

Yesterday I showed you how to add some contrasting strips to your curvy, strip-pieced segments to create an original block. Today I’ll an adorable small baby quilt – it could also be a  wall quilt – using more fabrics from the Banyan Batiks Island Vibes Palm Bay collection.

This quilt will be 30″ x 43″ when finished. Ready?

materials

• 3 fat quarters from the Island Vibes collection for the blocks
• 1 fat quarter for the sashing. I used Banyan Batiks Ketan #120 Cashmere.
• 24 – 1½” squares for cornerstones for sashing; blue scraps were used from the blocks I made on the first 2 days this week.
• 1 yd [.9 m] for borders and binding
• 1⅓ yd [1.2m] for backing

Cutting Instructions

Note: These strips will be cut on the lengthwise grain of the fabric. Each strip will be about 18″ long.

• From each of the 3 fat quarters for the blocks, cut 2 – 4″ strips, 2 – 3″ strips and 2 – 2″ strips.

• Arrange the strips in groups of 3, having a 4″, 3″ and 2″ strip in each set.

• Take the first 2 strips and overlap the long sides by about 1″, keeping the right sides up. Line up the short ends closest to you. It doesn’t matter if the other 2 ends don’t line up.
• With your rotary cutter, make a gentle wavy cut along the length of the strips. Hold the strips in place as needed to make sure they stay overlapped. You want to be cutting through both layers of fabric all the time.
• Remove the excess fabric from each strip.
• Sew the long wavy edges together using a ¼” seam. If you leave the bottom strip flat on the machine bed and hold the other strip up slightly as you’re sewing, the edges will fit together quite well. Pinning is not necessary – in fact, it seems to make it harder to sew the strips together. Sew slowly! Adjust the speed on your sewing machine if possible, so you aren’t tempted to sew too fast. This isn’t the time for speed sewing!
• Press the seams in one direction – it doesn’t matter which way they go.
• Lay the third strip on top of the 2 sewn strips, overlapping by about 1″. Line up the bottom edges.
• Cut another wavy line through both layers. Remove excess fabric and sew the third strip to the previously sewn ones.
• When making these strip sets, I did cut 3 strips at a time, but it’s OK to cut just 2, sew them together and then cut and sew the third strip.

• Continue sewing the strips in groups of 3 until you have 6 curvy, strip pieced sets.

• Cut each strip set into 3 – 6″ blocks. Depending on how curvy, you made your strips, you may find that your blocks might have to be 5½” or 5¾”. That’s OK. You’ll just have to remember to adjust the size of your sashing when you come to that part.
• You’ll have 18 – 6″ blocks, but you only need 15 of them for this little quilt.

• Using a design wall or similar surface, arrange 15 blocks as desired, making 5 rows with 3 blocks in each row. Alternate the direction of the strips.

Join me tomorrow and I’ll show you how to cut sashing and borders to finish up your Island Vibes quilt.