Easy Lap Quilt Tutorial using Strips

Once again we’re making a really quick quilt. This is great for those times when you want a quilt that is quick and easy to put together and showcases the fabric beautifully.

What makes it easy? We’re only going to be sewing strips so you won’t need to sew little pieces of fabric together.

It looks impressive but it’s easy to make.

Fabric Requirements

For this quilt, you are going to need 3 main fabrics plus a contrasting fabric and we have chosen an off white to complement the other colours.

• Fabric A (Brown Lotus Flower) – ½ yard
• Fabric B (House) – ½ yard (you may get away with 3/8 yard)
• Fabric C (Pink) – ¾” yard (you may get away with 5/8 yard)
• Fabric D (Contrast) – ¾” yard (you may get away with 5/8 yard)

Two really important things before we begin…

#1: Don’t use directional fabrics

Now despite the fact that I am using a couple of directional fabrics in my project, I do recommend that you select fabrics that are non-directional, otherwise you may end up with some patterns running in the wrong direction. We had to cut things a bit differently to get it to work so definitely stick with non-directional and you will have no problems.

#2: You will need at least 42″ of fabric

Also, keep in mind when choosing your fabrics that you need to make sure that you have at least 42” of usable fabric to work with otherwise you will need to sew pieces together to get the length, (and you will also have to do this if you decide to make a larger quilt).

You can see here that when I open up my fabric it measures 45” from selvedge to selvedge and has 44” of usable width so I have plenty to work with.

Cotton Cuts

The fabric I am using fabric for this quilt came in our latest Cotton Cuts pack. We get these packs quarterly and they are always a surprise because we just never know what we are going to get. Cotton Cuts is a membership service and you can choose how often you receive a pack of fabric. Plus you can make choices so that you get the type of fabric patterns and colourways that you like. It’s always a lovely surprise to open the pack to see what’s in it.

This particular pack includes:

• three yards of beautiful Moda fabrics, although we won’t be using all of the fabric for this quilt
• some matching Aurifil thread
• a pencil with a cute little quote which reads “Sewing mends the soul and frays the nerves” – ain’t that the truth.

The fabric is from the range Quaint Cottage by Gingiber.

The contrasting colour that we have introduced is an off white fabric that we got from our local Spotlight store. It’s not the same quality as the Moda Fabric but it will certainly do the job.

The colours go together beautifully, and the quality of the Moda fabric is really nice; it has a lovely weight and feel to it.

When we started designing the quilt we found that we needed to add the contrasting fabric just to break up the design as everything looked a tad fussy when we just used the three fabrics in the pack.

Moda of course is always a lovely fabric to work with. However, we do make a lot of quilts from what is considered to be lower quality fabrics and they always turn out well, but you can really feel the difference in quality when you are working with Moda.

Watch the video tutorial below or scroll down for written instructions

(Can’t see the video? You may have an ad blocker installed. You can watch the video on our YouTube channel here.)

Tools Used in This Tutorial

The tools we use are available on Amazon. We are affiliates with Amazon which means we get a small commission on purchases made, however, there is no extra cost to you.

• Ruler – Creative Grids 12½” x 24½” – The Big Easy Ruler
• Rotary Cutter – Olfa 45mm
• Frixion Pen
• Oliso Iron

Well then, let’s get started

I’ve laid out my four fabrics and you may find it helpful to label them into A ( lotus flower) not sure if it is a lotus flower but that’s what it looks like to me, B (house and park pattern), C (pink with brown pattern), and D (which is the contrast, we have chosen off white).

This is going to be really easy because all you need to do is cut your fabric into strips, plus a few extra little pieces.

Finished Quilt Size

Approx 40″ x 53″

Cutting the Strips

This is where your labeling comes into play so that you know exactly which fabric you are working with.

• Fabric A – cut 2 strips measuring 5½” x wof
• Fabric A – cut 6 pieces measuring 3″ x 5 ½” (for striped strip)
• Fabric B – cut 2 strips measuring 5½” x wof
• Fabric C – cut 2 strips measuring 5½” x wof
• Fabric C – cut 3 strips measuring 3″ x wof ( for checkerboard strips and striped row)
• Fabric D – cut 8 strips measuring 1½” x wof
• Fabric D – cut 3 strips measuring 3″ x wof ( for checkerboard strips and striped row)

For those of you who are new to quilting terminology WOF is the width of the fabric measuring from selvedge to selvedge and most quilting fabric measures between 42” and 44”.

Making the Checkerboard

I’m going to start by making my top and bottom checkerboard pieces first.

Take one of the 3″ strips of fabric C (pink) and one of the 3″ strips of fabric D (off white). Make sure that you are using the 3″ strips for this step.

Place them with right sides facing and line the line up the edges. I prefer to pin along the edge to help keep the pieces together, but some people don’t pin at all. Do what suits you.

Do the same with the other 3″ strips of C and D fabrics.

Set the Seam and Press

Once the strips are sewn together we are going to press the seams to the dark side of the fabric.

To do that, place the fabric with the dark side facing up towards you and then press the seam all along the strip.

Some people don’t bother doing this, but I just find I get a much better result when I do. It helps to embed the thread into the fabric and makes the seams lay flat.

Once that’s done, I open up the strip and press the seam to the dark side of the fabric.

I do this because it helps to hide the seam behind the dark fabric. This is particularly important if you are using white or cream colored fabrics. There are times when pressing to the dark side isn’t practical but most of the time you will be able to do it. Just keep in mind that sometimes it’s not practical to press to the dark side, some quilters will press the seam open, but I prefer to press to the light side if I have to.

You should now have 3 strip sets.

Cutting the Checkerboard

Strip 1

For the first strip, I’m going to trim off the selvedge edge. Just remember that we need at least 42” so just be mindful of how you trim. You don’t want to cut off too much.

It’s important to cut this nice and straight, so line up your ruler so that one of the lines runs along the seam line and place it as close as possible to the selvedge edge and cut.

Now, I’m going to flip this around so that I am at the right angle for me to cut, because what we need to do now is cut this strip into 4½” pieces.

I’ll take my ruler and line up one of the lines along the seam line and then line up the 4 ½” line along the edge and cut.

And I am going to repeat that all along the strip cutting at the 4 ½” mark. This should give you 9 pieces.

Strip 2

I will do exactly the same process for the second strip. You should now have a total of 18 pieces.

Strip 3

For the third strip set, we are going to trim off the selvedge again but we are only going to cut 2 pieces at 4 ½” each…just like we did with the previous strips.

From the remaining part of the strip you need to cut 5 pieces measuring 5 ½”.

So we now have two piles – one with blocks measuring 5 ½”. and one with blocks measuring 4 ½”.

Putting the Checkerboard Together

We won’t need the 5 larger pieces for the checkerboard so just set them aside for the moment as we will be working with the other 20 pieces.

Now it’s time to start sewing these pieces together to form our checkerboard.

I recommend that you lay the blocks out on the floor or your workspace, so that when you come to sew the blocks they are sewn in the right configuration.

I have the pink block as the starting piece in the first row of the checkerboard and the white block as the starting piece at the top on the bottom row.

Now we can sew the rows together to form our checkerboard. So I will take one piece and sew it to another and so on until I have sewn 10 of them together to form the first checkerboard row.

I’ll do this by laying one piece on top of the other and sew along the edge with a quarter inch seam and when you sew these together just ensure that you have lined them up so that the seams nest nicely and it you can see here that the pieces line up perfectly. I tend to get the pieces nicely lined up and pin them in place, as I want them to match perfectly when I have sewn them together. I also tend to chain piece the blocks together to speed up the process.

And I will repeat that with the rest of the pieces along this row.

Then I will do the same with the second row.

Making the Striped Piece

Now we are ready to work on the striped row.

So I have my 5 strip set pieces that we cut previously and the 6 pieces of Fabric A

So I’m going to start with Fabric A and I’m going to lay them out with a brown at the start then the white and pink and repeat all along the row an finishing with a brown.

And what I’m going to do is sew the brown pieces onto each of the strips sets and I’ll sew them with a quarter inch seam.

The strip at the end will have a brown piece sewn to either side.

Now, just sew the pieces together using the regular method of placing two pieces together with right sides facing and sewing them with a quarter inch seam.

Once the row is formed it’s time to press the seams and I usually iron the seam in the one direction but you could also iron the seams open if you prefer.

So now we have both the checkerboard pieces and the striped strip completed, and that’s the most difficult part of the quilt done, so it’s all smooth sailing from here on end.

Measure Your Strips

At this point we need to measure our checkerboard AND striped rows.

Technically they should measure 40 ½” but as we know things don’t always work out when sewing fabric together. If they don’t measure 40 ½” just check your seam allowances on the back and make sure they are all consistent and if they are way out you may think about unpicking and resewing them. Otherwise, if your 3 strips all measure the same then you just cut the rest of the strips to match.

My pieces measure 40 ½” so I am going to cut the rest of my strips at that measurement.

Lay out the Strips

Now that my strips have been cut to the right size I can lay them out how I want them to look and now it’s time to sew the rows together.

I’ll start at the bottom row and I’m going to take the sashing piece and lay it over the top of the bottom strip and sew along the edge with a quarter inch seam.

I’ll take the sashing strip and lay it over the bottom strip and sew them together with a 1/4″ seam and I’ll work my way up the quilt adding sashing to each row.

Now that I have the sashing pieces sewn on, I can sew the rows together and I usually do this in lots of two, and then I will sew those rows together to form the quilt top.

So there you have it the quilt is now complete and l’m very happy with how it looks.

You can add borders or you can add your batting and batting and finish it off using the turn through method.

More Quilts Using Strips

• The Squares Strip Quilt
• Broken Blocks Quilt
• Quilting for Beginners – Easiest Quilt Ever
• Easy Strip Rag Quilt