Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Bear Paw Oversize Baby Quilt

When I saw this photo on Katy’s Instagram feed, I knew I had to make it. What’s not to love about a scrappy bear paw?
Capture of bear paw
Since I make a lot of baby quilts for our “Wrapped in Love” group, I decided to make it charm square friendly and only make one oversized block.
Here’s what you will need
  • Sixteen 4 1/2” blocks from assorted prints
  • four 4 1/2” blocks from background fabric
  • Eight 5” squares from background fabric
  • Eight 5” squares from assorted prints
  • Two 2 1/2” strips cut WOF (these will be cut into four 12 1/2” strips)
  • One 2 1/2” block from print fabric
  • Four 4 1/2” strips cut WOF
To make sixteen half square triangles
Select eight 5” print squares and eight 5” background squares and put right sides together. Draw a diagonal line.
pair background block and draw line
Stitch a scant 1/4” away from both sides of the drawn line. Make sure your stitching is a scant 1/4” away
stitch scant line next to pencil
After stitching both sides, cut apart on drawn line
cut on drawn line
Open triangle and press to dark side, then trim to 4 1/2” square
IMG_3816
Each sewn pair of 5” squares will yield two identical triangles. If you want more variety, you will need to make additional pairs. You can always save the duplicates for a second quilt.
half square triangles
If you haven’t already done so, cut four 12 1/2” strips from the WOF 2 1/2” strips.
Following this diagram, lay out your block making sure the triangles are oriented according to the pattern and that you are pleased with the color combinations.
bear paw lay out
When you assemble your block, assemble each quadrant like you would a 9 patch block.
quadrant one

two quadrants
Make all four quadrants, then join the sashing strips
join sashing
Join one 12 1/2” strip to the right sides of the top left and bottom left quadrants
Join the top two quadrants
Join the bottom two quadrants
Join the two remaining 12 1/2” strips to the center 2 1/2” square
quilt top should now look like this
finished 26 inch block
Add the borders for a finished top
with borders

Quilt as desired. I did diagonal straight line quilting about 1” apart. After washing and drying the quilt measures 32 1/2” square.
finished quilted and bound
American Jane Pezzy print on the back
with backing
If you don’t want to make it with charm squares, just substitute four 8 1/2” squares for the sixteen 4 1/2” squares.
non-charm bear paw
Did I tell you I like the Bear Paw block? One of my first quilts was a bear paw. I hand quilted this one and soon thereafter decided I needed to learn how to machine quilt.
baby bear paw

3 comments:

  1. I love the scrappy bear claw. Great way to use up scraps.

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  2. I love how you've biggied up the bear paw to make an adorable quilt. I also love bear paws. I hope to get a bear paw quilt top finished this weekend.

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  3. I have corrected the error in the pattern. You need sixteen 4 1/2" squares instead of twelve. Thanks to Tracy for letting me know.

    ReplyDelete