I've been thinking about patterns for small lap quilts or baby quilts which can be made in a weekend...or at least made quickly. A friend asked me to design a quilt with Escher-like characteristics. My designing abilities (and my brain) weren't up to doing that but I did come up with this design in a larger size but then cut down the number of blocks for this small quilt.

If you stand back this quilt really has a lot of motion. The giant ric-rac along the border is just plain fun! This quilt can be quickly quilted with vertical quilting lines 1 inch apart using the walking foot with a guide bar.

Fabric requirements:

1 1/4 yard light background

1 1/2 yard dark triangles and border

2/3 yard small bright triangles (the birds) and binding

Backing: 1 3/4 yards. (If quilting by longarm: 3 yards to piece back to allow 4-5 inch extra fabric around quilt)

Large 1 inch ric-ric if desired

Crib size quilt batting 45 x 60 inches

Cutting Instructions:

Large dark triangles: Cut strips (2) 9 7/8 inches wide x Width Of Fabric (WOF). Cut this strip into (5) 9 7/8 inch squares. Then cut each square diagonally once to make 10 dark triangles.

Light background triangles: Cut (3) strips of fabric 5 3/8 inches wide x WOF. Cut strips into 5 3/8 inch squares to make (15) 5 3/8 inch squares. Cut these squared diagonally once to make 30 light background triangles.

Small bright triangles: Cut (1) strip of fabric 5 3/8 inches wide x WOF. Cut strips into 5 3/8 inch squares to make (5) 5 3/8 inch squares. Cut these squared diagonally once to make 10 small bright triangles.

Negative space squares: Cut (3) 9 1/2 inch strips x WOF. Cut strips into 9 1/2 inch squares.

Border: Dark fabric: Borders are 3 1/2 inches wide. Cut to fit width and length of completed quilt.

Binding: Cut (5) strips 2 1/2 inches wide x WOF.

Sewing Instructions:

To make the bird units:

Sew 1 small bird triangle to 1 small light background triangle, right sides together. Press seam.
Sew 1 small light background triangle to the pieced square. Match short side of the bright triangle to a short side of the light background triangle. Press seam. Repeat on the other side of the small bright triangle.

Sew the pieced "bird" triangle to the large dark triangle. Press seam away from the "bird" triangle.

Alternate squares with birds with background squares. Follow photo above--half the birds point upward and half point downward.

Attach borders.

Binding: Sew 2 1/2 inch strips X WOF end to end with bias or straight seams. Fold binding in half width-wise and press.

Sew on ric-rac now OR add when you are quilting. Either is fine.

Sandwich layers and quilt as desired.

Sew on binding and a label!