Running in Circles Baby Quilt

This quilt block will turn all your leftover scraps into a beautiful, cozy quilt! 

I made this baby quilt for a friend who is expecting in February, but keeping the gender a surprise. I used up scraps, but tried to keep it really gender neutral. I really love how it turned out.

Want to make your own?  

Start out with 72- 21/2 inch by 2 1/2 inch blocks

These can be any colors you like. Did I mention that this is a GREAT quilt to use up all your little scraps you've been keeping and you don't know why you have them, but you can't throw them away!

You will also need 

72- 1 1/2x 1 1/2 inch blocks

72- 1 1/2x 2 1/2 inch blocks

36- 2 1/2x 2 1/2 inch blocks

9- 2 1/2x 4 1/2 inch blocks

9- 4 1/2x 4 1/2 white squares

Once you have all your fabric cut, lay out 9 squares in the order you would like to have them in for your quilt block

The four corner squares will be sewn differently from the other four squares so it's important to know which square goes where. Mine got moved around a bit, which was OK, as long as I knew where my four corner ones would end up in the finished block

Take a 2 1/2x 2 1/2 inch white square and lay it right sides together with your first corner square. Sew one side together.

Press the seam (iron) 

And then confuse everyone by switching your photo and using green fabric instead of finishing up your red one (I don't know how that happened!).

Take your 2 1/2x 4 1/2 inch sqaure

Put right sides together and sew together

Iron, and you have your first corner square

Repeat for all four corners.

These will be 4 1/2x 4 1/2 inches when done 

Onto the remaining four squares, take your 1 1/2x 2 1/2 inch piece and lay right sides together, sew

You can sew the other side on before you iron. Use the other 1 1/2x 2 1/2 inch piece and sew onto the opposite side (once again, I'm not sure why my fabric keeps changing....)

Press and open

Take two 1 1/2x 4 1/2 pieces and sew together on opposite sides 

Right sides together

And now it's the blue fabric again... I'm not sure what was going on here!! 

Press and open after you've sewn together and you have your 4 1/2x 4 1/2 inch squar, 

(completely different fabric I blame it on all the other things I had going one while trying to sew!)

Repeat for your remaining 2 1/2x 2 1/2 inch sqaures 

Once you have all your mini blocks sewn together you can now piece it together to make your quilt square

Lay it out so you know how you want it to look once it's sewn together, then sew the top row, the middle, then the bottom. Pressing and matching up seams! Then sew all three rows together and you get your first block!! Yeah! 

I made these into a 36x36 inch baby quilt. Which means I made nine total blocks. I even used left over binding for other quilts!! The only fabric I bought for this quilt was the minky back. 

Add some simple straight line quilting, and you've got a pretty amazing baby shower gift!

(don't be afraid to machine quilt, check out some tutorials MACHINE QUILTING, SO YOU'VE DECIDED TO MACHINE QUILT)