Easy Diagonal Baby Quilt

 I am not use to quilts taking me forever to complete, but when you're pregnant with twins... It's hard to get much done. I was busy sleeping, eating, & growing babies. But I knew that I wanted to make my sweet littles a baby quilt (or two, or three), I already had lots of cute girly fabrics, so that was easy, choosing a pattern was the hard part! I decided to try a quilt-as-you-go. I had done it with a table runner before, but never an actual quilt. These instructions can be used either way, but I am writing them for a quilt-as-you-go. 

I started out with 15 fat quarters, which was MORE than enough fabric. I wanted to have a good variety. You can use as many colors & patterns as you would like. The scrappier the better, but it would look cute with some nice solids and even just two color alternating! The possibilities are endless.

*this pattern doesn't use exact measurements & is great for scraps, having some quilting experience is required, it is not recommended to use this tutorial if you're a new quilter

You will need to cut 20, 10 1/2 inch by 10 1/2 inch squares of batting. We will sew our strips directly onto the batting. Use a fabric pen to mark the diagonal center of each batting square

Cut fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips. I cut the longest length of my fat quarters, I also only cut about 4 per fat quarter to begin with since I was using so many different ones. After I had sewn a few squares I went back & cut more fabric as needed. The reason I did this is because I wanted more of my patterned fabric in the quilt. I would make a few squares, lay them out, decide which fabrics I wanted to see more of & then cut accordingly

 

Find the center of you your first 2 1/2 inch by  2 1/2 inch strip & line it up with the center of the batting square (centers together), you can sew it down using 1/4 inch seam, or pin in place, just make sure it doesn't move. Place another 2 1/2 inch strip right side down on top of the first strip & sew a 1/4 inch seam. Remember we are sewing on the diagonal center of the batting square, you will have overhang. That will be trimmed up later.

Press the seam & open it up. Then place the next 2 1/2 inch strip along the piece you just sewed & sew down using 1/4 inch seam.

Add strips until your batting square is covered

This will take seven strips 

 This is what you will end up with (back side). Now we just need to trim it up. Don't worry, we will reuse the strip scraps for more squares

Once trimmed we end up with pretty 10 1/2 inch square & some fabric scraps!

  

Continue making squares until you've completed 20. You can use a certain order of fabrics, or you can go the scrappy route like me & just put any together. You could even use the same color as the middle strip in every square, there are so many variations! I want to make every single one! 

 

Now that you've got  20 squares, you can start sewing them together. Square up your squares before starting because you want your lines to match up

You can also do some free motion quilting on the squares now if you're planning on quilting it yourself. I had mine quilted as a whole quilt so I didn't do free motion, but it would be easy to do them as 10 1/2 inch squares instead of a whole quilt

You would think that having the squares sewed down onto batting would help them not move as much, but there was still some stretching. It did help a little, but I sometimes had to work to get the seams to match. Luckily once it was quilted, it laid flat, squaring up is important to make sure you can get the seams together

So many seams to match!

Once you've got that pain in the butt sewn, you can leave as is (it will be 40 1/2 x 40 1/2  inches) or you can add a border 

I added a 2 1/2 inch border & a 5 1/2 inch border. I was planning on putting the twins names on the 5 1/2 in strip on the front of the quilt, but I decided to do them on the back instead.

 

These two are seriously the cutest! I made this pattern into quilts for them, using different fabric for each. It was fun to try and design a quilt basing the fabric choices off of their personalities in the womb. Baby A (as she was known back then) seemed more docile, & I always felt bad because she was so smashed. Baby B was so active, always kicking kicking kicking, taking up the whole womb. 

Baby A's quilt is a little softer, more delicate, & baby B's is brighter & crazier. I'm not sure that matches their personalities anymore, but that's OK.