Granny Square Quilt Block Tutorial

Well, you may have heard about it, but Rachel over at Stitched in Color is having another party!  (she's good at those!)  This time it's all about scraps!  It's called the Scrap Attack Quiltalong and you can read more about it over here.

Anyways, I'm very happy that she asked me to write a tutorial on this scrappy Granny Square block because it gave me the incentive to finish up the whole quilt!

You can read about my original inspiration for this block here.  Of course when I made the first few blocks I had no idea how they would look in a finished quilt.  I'm quite happy with the results though!  Sort of a mix of old-fashioned and modern, which is exactly what I love!

The final size of my quilt after being quilted and washed, is about 50"x60", which is an nice lap size quilt.  I'll give you instructions how to make one block, but will also give you fabric amounts for making a quilt the same size as mine.  

 For one block, here's what you'll need:  

12 - 2.5" squares of background color (I used Kona Snow)

8 - 2.5" squares of print or solid scraps in your chosen color for the outer ring

5 - 2.5" squares of print or solid scraps in your chosen color for the inner ring 

To make a quilt like mine, you'll need about 2 yards of solid background fabric (I used Kona Snow) This includes enough for sashing and border.

You'll also need 260 - 2.5" squares for your blocks.  I would definitely cut more than this exact amount so that you can play around with color placement when you put your blocks together.  They're just scraps anyways, right!?

Now lay them out like this next to your sewing machine and sew them together into rows.

Once you've sewed all the rows they should look like the photo above.  Notice that the two lonely white corner pieces have not been attached to anything yet.  That's how it should be.  I suggest pressing these seams open.

Now take and sew these rows together,  adding those lonely corner squares on to the ends where they belong.

You should now have a completed block that looks like this.  Those little arrows are my crude way of showing you how these seams should be pressed.  Although I generally like to press my seams open, these ones work best if pressed to one side in the direction I've shown above.

Now you just need to trim your block!  You'll want to cut a quarter inch away from the point in your colored squares, so that the point doesn't get lost in your seam allowance.

Mine ended up needing to be trimmed to 9 1/8" square.  This may vary slightly, depending how scant/generously you sew your 1/4" seams. It won't really matter, just so your blocks are all square, and all the same size.

I made 20 blocks for my quilt, and sashed it with 2.5" wide strips.  I made my outside borders 6" wide.

I decided to hand quilt this one, using an orange perle cotton.  If you don't tell anyone, I'll let you in on my little secret.  I don't use any type of hoop or frame.  I just layer and baste my quilt with safety pins the same way I do for machine quilting.

Then I plop myself down on a soft chair and begin to quilt.  I've done a couple of quilts this way, and have had no problems at all, with any puckering or any type of bad things that I would imagine should happen to me by using this lazy method.

I'm not guaranteeing anything, just sayin...:)

Here's the back.  I had fun pairing these black and jewel tone prints with the daintier colors on the front of the quilt.

So are any of you inspired to make a block or three or twenty?  If you are, make sure to add it to the Scrap Attack Flickr group.  I'd love to see your variation.

*Edited to Add*  I have a new tutorial available for this quilt block.  It uses strip sewing, which is perfect for a jelly roll or 2 1/2" strips.  Find the blog post here.