Patchwork Baby Steps Quilt Tutorial

One day early this summer, my 11 year old daughter, K, and I were doodling on graph paper and she drew the inspiration for this quilt. It was perfect timing as I have a friend due to have a baby girl soon, and I wanted to make her a quilt. My challenge was to find a way to quick piece K's design and make it fat quarter friendly because that is the bulk of my stash. More graph paper doodling ensued, and I had a plan to use either fat quarters or jelly roll strips.

Quilt size: 36" square

The quilt is composed of different five types of strip sets, which are then cross cut into 2.5" wide subsection strips and assembled into five different 12" block sets for a total of nine blocks.

Fabric requirements*
24 assorted fat quarter strips - 2.5" x 21" or 12 width of fabric jelly roll strips
white background - 1 1/3 yards

Cutting instructions
8 white 2.5" x width of fabric strips, cut each strip in half to 21" length*
5 white 4.5" x width of fabric strips, cut each strip in half to 21" length* (you may substitute with two 2.5" jelly roll strips)

*Do not cut into 21" lengths if you are using jelly roll strips

Make strip sets
Using your color strips and white strips, assemble five different types of strip sets as follows. You will make TWO strip sets of each type if you are using FQ strips; if you are using jelly roll strips for the color portion rather than fat quarters, you will have one long WOF strip set. 

There will be excess fabric leftover from the strip sets. I find it easier to waste a bit of fabric than to cut multiple length strip sets, but you can reduce the length of the second strip set (if using FQ) from 21" to 10" for each of the fabrics if you want to eliminate waste.You may also notice that strip set 1 upside down is the same as strip set 4, and strip set 2 upside down is the same as strip set 3, so you can combine those for the second strip sets if you don't mind more repeat in fabric prints.

Strip set 1:
1 1/2 strip sets needed if using FQs

Strip set 2:
1 1/2 strip sets needed if using FQs

Strip set 3:
1 1/4 strip sets needed if using FQs

Strip set 4:
1 1/4 strip sets needed if using FQs

Strip set 5:
1 1/4 strip sets needed if using FQs

Cross cut strip sets into subsets
Cross cut your strip sets into 2.5" wide strips. Each strip will be 2.5" x 12.5".

Assemble quilt blocks

Assemble subset strips into quilt blocks as follows:

Block A:

Make three

Block B:

Make two

Block C:

Make one

Block D:

Make one

Block E:

Make two

Assemble quilt top

Assemble quilt blocks in the following order to make the quilt top: