If you’re looking for a fast, beginner-friendly quilt tutorial, you’re in the right place! This simple pattern is perfect for showing off novelty prints, like the ones in Heidi Staples Five & Dime collection for Riley Blake.
This fabric collection is a retro-inspired look at the nostalgia from the original Five & Dime corner shops.
The motifs include vintage toys, packaging, tags, and receipts. It’s the perfect fabric for fussy-cutting! You can read more about Heidi’s inspiration for Five & Dime as well as see images of all of the prints in this post.
Because the prints are so fun to look at, I wanted to create something that really let the fabric show-off – and do the work! So I came up with a very simple, beginner-friendly quilt tutorial that is easy to put together, but also really let’s the fabric speak for itself.
Here is the fast and easy, Five & Dime Quilt! This quilt would work well with lots of fabrics and could easily be a scrappy, colorful quilt. After stacking up the fabric in color order, I decided I really wanted to keep the fabric in that rainbow spectrum.
Here are the fabric requirements to make this 39″ x 53″ crib quilt:
- 18 print squares 7 ½” x 7 ½” (I also mixed in some solids)
- 17 print squares 5” x 5”
- 1 ¼ yard solid white
- ⅜ yard binding
- 1 ¾ yard backing (this is feasible but if you’re worried about not having enough space on either side for quilting, get 2 ⅓ yards)
Sub-cut white fabric:
- 2 strips 5” x width of fabric (WOF) – cut into 34 strips 1 ¾” x 5”
- 2 strips 7 ½” x WOF – cut into 34 strips 1 ¾” x 7 ½”
- 5 strips 2 ½” x WOF (for outside border).
Piecing:
Sew 2 white 1 ¾” x 5” strips to top and bottom of 5” x 5” print square. Press seams toward print square.
Sew 2 white 1 ¾” x 7 ½” strips to remaining sides of print square. Press seams toward print square.
That’s it! Repeat to make 17 of these framed-print blocks.
Layout quilt in 7 rows of 5 blocks each, alternating 7 ½” x 7 ½” print squares and 7 ½” x 7 ½” pieced squares. (See Diagram above.)
Sew blocks together in rows, pressing seams toward the 7 ½″ x 7 ½″ print squares. Sew rows together in order. Seams should nest nicely helping to match up your points.
Borders:
Use 2 ½” x WOF strips to add outside borders. Press seams toward borders.
Quilt and Bind. Here’s my back – I had fun keeping up the spectrum them and piecing prints and solids for a scrappy back. And I love the way the playful Bubbles quilting by Melissa of Sew Shabby Quilting give texture to the relatively simple pattern of this quilt and how they show up so well in the solids on the back.
If you would prefer:
I have a printable PDF version for $2.00, including the fabric requirements and measurements, and cutting instructions for a Throw, Twin, Queen, and King size version as well.
Such an easy-peasy, beginner-friendly quilt tutorial – but when you use fun, busy prints like the ones in the Five & Dime collection, the quilt looks much busier. These cute, detailed prints give the quilt a fun I-Spy quality too.
You must checkout the other stops on this tour because the projects are absolutely adorable. These women are so talented and really take these fun prints and show some of the amazing work that can be done fussy-cutting them. (I’m especially smitten the way Elea used some clever fussy-cutting to make adorable gift tags. I could do that!) Can’t wait to see what Minki and Heidi have up their sleeves to share!
Thanks again for stopping by! Reminder – the printable PDF version is available here if you’re looking for more size variations!
Vicki H
Fun fabrics, I love fast and easy quilts.
Christine S
Very cute quilt! Thanks for sharing 🙂
June @ QuiltQuest
Great idea – thanks for sharing!
Betsy
Great tutorial Amy
Lissi
I love this quilt! I know they are fast and easy, but, I often find myself drawn to quilts with a similar pattern, no matter what colors/prints are used. Thanks for sharing this pattern!
Kathleen Kingsbury
Love this collection, and how your quilt shows it off!
Cocoa Quilts
I love the collection and the quilt shows off the fabrics perfectly.
Lizzie
Beautiful use of these fun fabrics! Gotta see if I can spy some boxing robots (my favorite vintage 50’s toy that my Gram saved to let us play with, just like our Dad and Aunt did!)
Genevieve C
Thanks for all your wonderful idea’s Amy. You always inspire me, God Bless!
Tonia Conner
Thank for the tutorial of the sweet baby quilt Amy.
Karen S
Thanks so much for your generosity! This is an adorable quilt!
Sue Walton
Where can I purchase the fabric?
Amy
I found a bunch of sellers on Etsy with this fabric in stock: https://www.etsy.com/search?ref=tab_search&q=Five+and+Dime+fabric
Kayla Frazier
Wonderful quilt!! Thanks for sharing!!
JennieJ
Was looking for any easy baby quilt and this is lovely, but can i ask what WOF if please.
Amy
Yes! Good question – it means Width of Fabric (measuring across the fabric from selvage to selvage.) It’s typically between 40″ and 42″ depending on the manufacturer.
I hope you enjoy making it!
Jennie
Thank you I have found some lovely fabric so hopefully it turns out nice. Is there anyway I can show you it when finished ?
Amy
Wonderful! I’d love to see it! you can email me at amy@diaryofaquilter.com.
Debra Twigg
Where it say cut out 2 – strips 1 3/4″ x WOF. Then cut out 34- 5″ strips. If your fabric is only 45″ wide you cannot get 34 stripes. You only get 5 strips out of one stripe. Also cut 2 – stripes 1 3/4″ x WOF. Then cut out 34 – 7 1/2. If your fabric is only 45″ wide you cannot get out 34 strips.
Amy
You’re going to cut two 5″ strips – then sub cut the 5″ strips 1 3/4″. You can get 22 strips 1 3/4″ wide from a 42″ WOF strip, so you will have plenty of yardage with two strips. This is why you cut two strips 5″ x WOF and two strips 7 1/2″ x WOF. The height of the strips is already set and you only need to cut the 1 3/4″ widths.
I hope that clears up any confusion.
Yvonne
Hi Amy, have just discovered your blog and am liking what I see…thanks for this pattern…we have 7 great grandies and this quilt will be great to do for them…thank you once again happy and healthy 2020 to you and yours…Yvonne
Yvonne
Hi Amy, I have just found your blog and have signed up to it….we have 7 great grandies and I will be making this lovely quilt for them when and if my chronic fatigue allows me to.
Once again thank you for this delightful quilt…Yvonne
Krissi
I used your simple stripes tutorial to teach sewing to teens at my church. They each sewed a personal lap quilt and we collectively created a twin sized quilt for a veteran
Amy
That is awesome! I love it. Thanks so much for sharing with me!
Paula
I am trying this pattern. The smaller squares when the sashing is sewn are not matching up with the 7/12″ strips. The smaller squares are 1/4″ all around to small.
Paula
Amy, I figured it out! It seems that my gauge was off.
Amy
Oh good! I’m glad you figured out the issue.