Robot Quilt Tutorial

This adorable boy's quilt is a great way to use any fabric with large, feature motifs. You could easily adapt it to be for a girl by changing the fabric. Use more squares to make it twin size. I think five squares by seven squares would be perfect and really make the big square, small square pattern pop more than it does in this simple nine square arrangement. And with that aside, let's begin!

For the larger squares, I fussy cut around robots in a 6 1/2 inch square. For the smaller moon squares I used a 4 1/2 inch square. From your coordinating colored prints cut some strips 2 1/4 inches and the rest 1 1/2 inches wide. Cut long strips of white fabric 3 1/4 inches wide.

Sew the 1 1/2 inch strips onto the top and bottom of the robot squares. I cut pieces by just eyeballing the strips a little larger than needed, sewed them on, pressed the seems to one side, then trimmed them to the correct length.

This gives you the exact length you need and keeps the block nice and square. Next sew two more 1 1/2 inch strips to the two sides of the block. Press and trim. In the same way, sew the 2 1/4 inch strips around the thinner strips which are now around the robot squares.

In the same way, sew the 2 1/4 inch strips around the thinner strips which are now around the robot squares.

To make the smaller, moon squares, sew the 1 1/2 inch strips around the moon square. Then sew the 3 1/4 inch white strips around that. All your squares should be about 11 inches square when they are finished.
When you have completed five robot blocks and four moon blocks you are ready to put together the quilt top. Sew the blocks together according to the layout in the photo. I sewed a 2 1/2 white border on all four sides. Then layer and baste with batting and backing. I pieced my backing with leftover fabric, but you can use whatever you like. I machine quilted my quilt in a large meandering design (which I don't think I'll try again anytime soon. I'm just not good at freemotion!). I made a pieced binding from leftover fabrics which I think is a really cute look. My binding was double fold style and 2 1/4 inches wide.

The finished quilt is about 35 inches square. I used 3/4 yard of the robot print because of all the fussy cutting and 1/4 to 1/3 yard of 6 different coordinating prints. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I'll revise the tutoral accordingly!