Easy Four Patch - no more strips

This is a different way to make a fast and easy quilt using four patches. Use your scraps.

You can cut your squares any size you wish. You can use 5" charm packs (a pack of 40 charms makes a good size quilt). I cut mine 4 1/2" because I wanted to use up some fat quarters in my stash. I used my Studio / Go cutter.

Match your squares - one light to one dark. They don't have to be a perfect match. With right sides together, sew up two sides.

Here, I have sewn up two sides.

I chain-sewed the squares together and it was quite fast. Cut your 'strings' apart.

Cut each square in half, parallel to the stitching line.

Since my original squares were 4 1/2" wide, the result is that half of that square is 2 1/4". I have my ruler at the 2 1/4" mark.

Press them to one side. It does not matter which side you press to - normally, you press to the dark side.

Sew these pieces together - butt them together on the seam sides. 

Once you have several sets sewn, sew these sets together like the picture above.

Now comes the interesting part. Cut off the first half of the first patch. See picture below. I lay the first patch in half over the adjoining patch and make my first slice. That should be 2 1/4" you are cutting off. One 4-patch should be 4" square ( 4 1/2"minus 1/2" seam allowance) BUT the first slice to be cut will be 2 1/4" because that side does not have a seam allowance.

To make it easy, fold the first patch in half and follow the edge to cut - no measuring required! when you fold over the next patch, you will cut and automatically get a resulting 4-patch! Easy!

For now, you don't need that lonely first patch on the left. When you have cut several 4-patches, you can assemble. 36 charms will give you 36 four patches. I used 42 to make a quilt 6 rows by 7 rows. If you are using 5" charms, you should have 23" x 32". Add some 4" borders and you can make a good size  baby quilt, 30" x 40".