Make this bright and vibrant kid’s quilt for the toddler who is learning to eat healthy. A basket of fresh blueberries (or your favorite fruit) is surrounded by colorful fruits and vegetables fresh from the Farmer’s Market.  A great opportunity to play I Spy with your little one while teaching the fundamentals of healthy eating and good food choices.

The quilt finished size is about 40 inches square. The center block is 15 inches square.  This easy project can be finished in a weekend from cutting to label.  The top will go together in just a couple of hours.

Fabric Requirements

Basket fabric –  one 7-inch square and one four-inch square

Fruit fabric – one 7-inch square

Background fabric – 1/2 yard

Food prints – Twelve 8-inch squares

Veggie border print – 1/2 yard, more if you want to bind it in the same print.

Binding print – 1/3 – 1/2 yard depending on how you do it (bias strips or straight grain)

Note – WOF = width of fabric, HST = half square triangle

Cutting Instructions –

Basket Fabric – one 7-inch square, and

one 4-inch square

Center Fruit Fabric – one 7-inch square

Background Fabric –four strips 2-1/2 inches wide WOF for inner border

two 7-1/2-inch squares cut on the diagonal,

one 4-inch square,

three 3-1/2-inch squares,

one strip 3-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches,

two strips 2 x 15-1/2 inches

Fruit and Veggie Prints– twelve 8-inch squares

Veggie Print Border – 1/2 yard – four to five 3-1/2 wide strips WOF for outer border

Binding print – 2-1/2 inch strips, sewn together to make a continuous binding

Sewing Instructions

Begin by placing the 7-inch berry fabric and basket fabric squares right sides together, draw a line diagonally and cut. Sew a 1/4 seam along the cut edge (hypotenuse) to create a HST unit.

Press with the seam towards the darker fabric, square up to 6-1/2 inches and set aside. You’ll only use one so set the other two triangles aside for another project.  See How To Square Up A Block to learn more.

Using the two 4-inch squares of basket fabric and background, make two HST with the same method. Press, square to 3-1/2 inches and set aside.

Lay the large HST on your board, and arrange the smaller HSTs and three background 3-1/2 inch squares as shown in the picture to form the basket. Sew in rows. Square up to 9-1/2 inches.

Next, take the triangles cut from the 7-1/2-inch squares, and arrange around the block to set it on point. Square this block to 12-1/2 inches.

Add the 3-1/2 x 12-1/2 inch wide strip to the top.

Add the 2 x 15-1/2 inch strips to the left and right sides. Square this block to 15-1/2 inches.

Lay out your twelve 8-inch square fruit and veggie fabrics in a pleasing arrangement around the outside of the center block. This pic doesn’t show the side pieces on the center block, be sure you put them on first.

Sew the two side squares together, then to the center block. Sew the top and bottom squares in rows. Sew the rows together nesting your seams where possible.

At this point, you could embroider the child’s name in the white space around the basket, or put other words, like Farmers Market, or name the fruits and vegetables that are pictured. Either embroider them or use a Pigma pen to simply write the names if desired.

Add a border of 2-1/2 inch wide cut strips of background fabric, measuring your quilt to get the proper length. Be sure you use proper border application technique, you can see how to do that with my tutorial on Borders.  See the top of my blog for all my tutorials, or just click on How to Attach Quilt Borders the Right Way – to avoid ruffled edges.

Add a second border of 3-1/2 inch wide food print fabric, to pick up the color you want to accent most. I like red and primary colors for kids, so I went with tomatoes.

Quilt as desired. I used an allover leaf pantograph design, and this could be easily done freehand on a DSM.

Bind with whatever color or print you like. Sometimes I like to match the border print, sometimes I match the backing print. Other times I put a contrasting binding on, and for this quilt I used the fabric from the basket to pull that color across the quilt. See my four part tutorial on binding a quilt – Making Bias Binding, Sewing to the Quilt, Joining Binding Ends, and Stitching the Edge to the Back.

Here are some close up pictures of my finished quilt!

Don’t forget your label.

I hope you have fun making one too!

You can download a free printer friendly version of the instructions here –I Spy a Farmer’s Market

Permissions – may use to make Linus quilts or any personal quilt as often as you like.  May Pin to Pinterest.

Copyright Carole Carter – All Rights Reserved