4-Patch Scrappy Baby Quilt

Brrrr!  It's cold!  I'm on the fringe of the arctic blast that's sweeping North America.  There's freezing rain and ice 20 miles north of me, and it's a balmy 55 F forty miles south.  The low here is hovering around 32 F -- warm enough to avoid the icy weather but cold enough to keep me away from my sewing machine.  My studio is just a glorified shed.  It has a floor, four walls and four single-pane windows, and a roof.  There is no insulation anywhere and no ceiling to hinder heat from going out through the roof.  With my electric radiator heater turned on high, it's only 15-20 degrees warmer inside than outside.

Since I can't work on new sewing projects right now, it's a good time to take a look at one of my UFOs.  This is the top that was peeking beneath the red and white Sunrise, Sunset project.

Several years ago, my mom made a baby quilt and had a few scraps left over.  I added a few of my own scraps and pieced them all together.  The design inspiration came from one of the fabrics that looked like a montage of baby jungle animals.

I decided to go with that montage (or collage) effect by making a 4-patch within a 4-patch block.

I rotated these blocks different ways and set them with regular 4-patch blocks and two plain blocks of  the jungle fabric (I wanted three but didn't have enough fabric for three).  Here's an Electric Quilt representation of the quilt top.

I used 2.5-inch, 4.5-inch, and 8.5-inch squares (cutting measurements).  The yellow border was cut 1.5 inches wide and the blue border was cut 3 inches wide.  It worked up quickly and was a great way to use scraps that had a theme.  I plan to try this design out again next month to use up some Christmas fabric stash.