Tutorial: Modern Chevron Quilt Pattern (baby quilt)

Chevrons are everywhere at the moment and I love ’em. I know I’ll want to make this chevron quilt pattern again so I’m documenting it for my forgetful future-self and anyone else who might be interested. Maybe you’d also like to fire up your sewing machine and make a version of this modern baby quilt.

ETA: I also have a multi-size PDF pattern for this quilt in the shop. It will show you how to sew the baby, throw, twin, queen and king sizes with scraps or FQs!

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

If you’ve ever thought of sewing a quilt this chevron quilt pattern is a great one to get started with. It’s a great pattern for a beginner quilter. It’s made from squares and half-square triangles which are quite easy to put together. Plus I’ve also got plenty of helpful links to guide you through the whole process, so it’s very beginner quilter friendly.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Before we start – here’s where I took my inspiration. A manhole cover. Romantic, oui? Just be thankful I photoshopped out the cigarette butt. I’m not sure why, but when I looked at this manhole I thought ‘oh, that’d make a cute quilt’.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

This fun quilt pattern will produce a baby-size chevron quilt (45 x 60 inches) for your baby-wrapping pleasure. You’ll need to decide on two contrasting colours (I’ve gone tangerine and a beige/taupe) and then assemble some fabrics.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Fabric Requirements for your chevron quilt pattern

A great beginner project, this modern baby quilt pattern is the perfect quilt for using up scrap fabric. It also works well with larger cuts such as fat quarters and half yards.

I chose 4 different neutrals (half yard cuts of each) and 7 different tangerines (fat quarters of each). A neat trick is to find a fabric with a repeating pattern in regular rows, like this one:

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

By just altering the spacing of my cutting, I ended up with three different looking blocks from the one fabric:

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Cut Your Fabric Squares For Your Chevron Baby Quilt

Once you’ve filled your fabric requirements, grab your rotary cutter and start cutting:

From your tangerine colours you will need a total of (180) 3 inch squares.

From your neutrals you will also need a total of (180) 3 inch squares.

Sew Your HST Units

We also need to make the 72 half-square triangles (HSTs) from the fabric requirements. What follows is an explanation of how I like to make them.

Cut Your HST Squares

Let’s start fabric cutting for the HSTs. You’ll need to cut:

(36) 3½ inch tangerine squares, and

(36) 3½ inch neutral squares.

Mark and Sew Your HSTs

Take a neutral 3½ inch square and draw a line diagonally corner to corner on the wrong side. I use a Hera marker, but a water soluble fabric marker or a grey lead pencil works too. Just don’t use a pen because the ink will melt and smear when you iron it.

Match this neutral 3½ inch square with one of your 3½ inch tangerine squares, right sides together.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Then using your marked line as your guide, sew a seam a quarter-inch seam either side of that line.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Chain piecing really speeds the process up here. Feed your units in one after the other to sew one seam, then clip them apart, flip them around and feed them all back in again to sew the other seam. Then you’ll have all your squares sewn up lickety-split.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

You might notice I’ve evenly mixed my tangerine squares while my neutrals are still in their individual colour stacks (just lumped on top of each other). This way my tangerine fabrics will be evenly distributed among the neutrals in my HST units. (I didn’t want all of one orange fabric ending up sewn to the one neutral.) Then I could just grab from the top of each stack without thinking about it.

Once you’ve cut apart all your two square units it’s time to cut along the marker line to give yourself two HST units.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Press Your HST Units

Press your seams either open or to one side, as you prefer. If you’re a beginner quilter try to press and not ‘iron’. Ironing involves running the iron back and forward like you’d iron a shirt, pressing is putting the iron down, shot of steam (if you like), lift the iron up and repeat. No dragging the iron across the fabric as this stretches and distorts your lovely half-square triangles.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Trim Your HST Units

Now I have made these half-square triangles a wee bit larger than the 3 inch finished product required. This is so there is some fat to trim so your HSTs are accurate and make pointy looking points. Yes, it adds another step, but it makes for a good-lookin’ product.

Right, so trim/square up your HSTs to 3 inches either with a square ruler or, like me, using the 45 degree angle line on your cutting mat:

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Lay Out Your Chevron Quilt Pattern

Now you will have all your units cut and ready to lay out in your chevron pattern. Just follow the grid below, alternating your colours within each chevron in a way that’s pleasing to your eye.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

All laid out? Good. Break open a block of chocolate and then sew the whole thing together, again with a quarter-inch seam. First join your squares to make rows. Press the seams in the first row to the right, then in the second row to the left. Continue on pressing the rows in alternate directions so the seams will nest. Then it’s time to sew the rows together. I like to pin my fabric squares so the seams match, but some people have luck with nesting and a prayer!

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Whee! We’re on the home stretch now. Now to make a backing. I used the tangerine left overs in mine, between two pieces of IKEA flat sheet. If you’re tired of piecing and just want to finish (we’ve all been there!), go with a single large piece of fabric.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Quilting Your Chevron Quilt Pattern

What quilting pattern are you going to use? It can be as simple as a large grid, using the seams as a guide or some fancy free motion quilting to highlight your chevrons. There are plenty of straight line quilting ideas in this blog post of mine.

I went for a straight-line quilting pattern echoing the chevron shapes.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

I drew the quilting pattern on my quilt top with a water-soluble marker, one inch from my outer seams (added bonus is you aren’t quilting over thick seam lines where multiple layers meet).

Make your quilt sandwich with backing, wadding/batting and then your quilt top. You can pin them together (great tutorial on this at Red Pepper Quilts) or you can spray baste them together. I chose to spray baste as my quilting pattern had lots of pivots and I wanted the extra hold as I hauled the quilt through my machine.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Choose the thread colour for quilting – I went with thread to match each fabric colour but you could easily use tangerine on your neutral chevrons and neutral on your tangerine fabric for a different look. Don’t forget to consider the back as well as your quilt top. In retrospect I wish I’d only used tangerine thread on the back (bobbin thread) so the quilting stood out even more on my neutral backing. We live and learn, huh?

Binding Your Chevron Quilt Pattern

Once you’ve quilted it’s time to bind. My favourite binding making/attaching tutorials are here: at Crazy Mom Quilts and Red Pepper Quilts.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Once your binding is attached you have to trim excess batting and backing, fold the binding over to enclose the raw edges of the quilt and then secure by sewing. You can machine sew it with precision (Red Pepper Quilts tutorial) or go for a quicker machine sew by using a zigzag stitch (you can see my tutorial on zigzag stitch quilt binding here).

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

I chose a thread to match the backing (rather than the binding) and used a long length of it doubled up. Thread the two cut ends through the needle (the uncut loop will hang at the other end). I put my needle through this loop when making the first stitch to secure the thread without having to use a knot.

I sew an uneven ladder stitch – about a quarter inch in the binding (I just zip along inside the fold) and then a smaller stitch into the quilt back and batting before heading back up into the binding.

And I love using binding clips to hold it all in place; much more friendly than pins.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

After it’s all done, throw it in the wash to get rid of your water soluble marker, dry and then find a baby to snuggle with. Mmmm, babies.

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Other Quilt Sizes

As mentioned before this chevron baby quilt pattern is the perfect quilt for a beginner quilter. It’s also one of those modern quilts that’s easy to scale up to make other quilt sizes. Once you’ve tackled a beginner quilt, you could upsize to a larger quilt size.

The Modern Chevron Quilt Pattern will make it easy for you to upsize your chevron baby quilt. The quilt pattern has instructions for 5 quilt sizes: baby, throw, twin, queen and king.

The pattern will show you how to use FQs and half yards to make this pattern, which is great for stash busting. You can find the Modern Chevron Quilt Pattern right here, in my pattern shop.

I wish you many chevrons and babies and plenty of time to enjoy them all!

Modern Chevron Baby Quilt in Tangerine - a quilt tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Share or Pin for later:

124 thoughts on “Tutorial: Modern Chevron Quilt Pattern (baby quilt)”

  1. I found and started this quilt over 4 years ago when I was pregnant with my first but have finally picked it back up now that both kids are in kindy and I have more time. I can’t wait to finish this beautiful quilt, maybe in time for number 3 haha. Couldn’t remember the name of quilt and needed the rest of the pattern so I was googling manhole quilt and luckily it popped up!

    Reply
  2. Thank you thank you I have 2 grandsons who drive 18 wheelers and I have been looking for a pattern to make a quilt for them. They have told me about backing their truck to a loading dock so I think this is perfect block for them in different colors.

    Reply
  3. I laughed when I saw it was a man whole cover because my first glance at the quilt said tube map from my London vacation! Which makes me think, that could be a fun quilt memory!

    Reply
  4. This is a really nice design Kirsty, thank you ! I don’t have any babies arriving in my family soon, but I’m sure that there will be some in my social circle sometime soon. This will be a wonderful quilt for any baby, and if made a bit bigger, for a Mom too !

    Reply
  5. Hi Kristy: I’m wondering if you have this pattern in PDF format. I’m having a hard time trying to save it to my computer so I can make it in the future. It would be perfect for a future grandbaby. Thanks, Sandra C.

    Reply
  6. Hi Kirsty,

    Thank you for sharing the details for this beautiful and bright quilt. I love the colors that you have chosen and would love to make it for myself, only bigger.

    Reply
  7. Hi Kirsty
    I enjoyed this quilt demo. I live i Alice Springs and have to buy most fabrics online. Sometimes the fabrics are so thin and disappointing. Anyway Im glad to see an Aussie quilter. Thanks

    Reply
  8. DEFINITELY will be making this; thanks for re-sharing this quick “oldie” for me to create this week for a “newbie” (to be born next month!)

    Reply
  9. Thanks for taking the time to photoshop the manhole cover!!! I love the pattern and your color choices. Just what I needed….another project in my que. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply
  10. Looking for something easy and pretty for a new baby… found this after looking at your latest email (2017)… Still one of the prettiest baby quilts I’ve seen. Love the tangerine! And the pattern. I love chevrons too!

    Reply
  11. I love the inspiration behind the quilt! It’s so awesome! Who would’ve thought? Love your blog! I’m not necessarily a beginner quilter but there are a lot of things I don’t know how to do. When reading a blog, I get frustrated when I don’t know how to do something that is mentioned. Love that you give options of where to go to find out how to do a technique. You cover all of the bases on that! I’m very impressed. Beautiful quilt!! Awesome blog!! I will be back! Blessings on your quilting!Jo

    Reply
  12. Thanks for sharing your work – this has wow factor – definitley going to try this as being looking for something a little different – thanks again

    Reply
  13. First time visitor here. Beautiful quilt; I love the tangerine and neutral colors together. I’m new to quilting but I’m sure I can sew squares together! This is my next project!
    Thanks – =^..^=

    Reply
  14. Thanks so much for doing this tutorial for us all….I am not a very “modern” quilter but love this Idea for baby quilts can see it with animal prints :) I have just saved your line drawing for future reference …thanks again

    Reply
  15. Beautiful! And maybe even easy enough for me, someone who has never made a quilt, to make! How would I go about making this into a full size quilt? Thanks so much!

    Reply
    • Hi Shane, you can make this quilt bigger in a few ways – the easiest would be to just put a big border around it ’til it gets to the size you want. Another way would be to break out your calculator and increase the size of all the squares until the completed quilt is the size you want (the design will be the same, just scaled larger). Thirdly, you could keep the squares the same size and continue the pattern on around all four edges to get the size you want (the design will remain small, there will be more of it). It all depends on your own taste and how much math you’re willing to do!

      Reply
  16. Wow, this is fantastic. I swore to myself I would never make another quilt after sewing my one and only. This is the only one I’ve come across that could make me second-guess my decision. A baby quilt is different from a quilt quilt, right?

    Reply
  17. Kirsty,
    This is an absolutely beautiful quilt and easy top follow tutorial. I love that you got your inspiration from a man-hole cover. I have a feeling I’ll be making myself one of these quilts.

    Reply
  18. What a cute quilt. I love your talent. Thanks
    for sharing. I reproduced it in EQ7 and plan
    to make soon for a Project Linus.

    Reply
  19. You had me at the photo of the chevron baby quilt. OMG. The pattern is beautiful, and the tutorial is great. I’ve just started to hem the binding of the second quilt I ever made. CBQ will definitely will definitely be quilt 3 for me. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    Reply
  20. Love the quilt– it’s been sitting in an open tab for a week while I study and decide what I want to do. Question: I’m a bit confused about the piece sizes. Your directions say 180 3″ pieces, then you mention making the half squares w/ 72 3.5″. Did I miss something? Just don’t want to errantly cut a bunch of fabric! Thank you for clarifying.

    Reply
    • Hi Gayle, the 180 pieces are plain squares for the pattern. The 72 pieces (slightly larger) are what you sew together and then cut apart again to form the Half Square Triangle blocks. Those pieces are cut at 3.5″ so that in the end, when you cut them open and trim, they will measure 3″ to match the 180 squares. Hope that helps?

      Reply
    • Yep, think I’ve got it. Now all I have to do is find really cool tangerines. I love the color and your quilt just shows it off. In my town finding these kinds of fabrics are limited. I’m web surfing, but have only found a couple that I really like. Sigh.

      Reply
  21. So clever – never overlook any thing – design inspiration comes from everywhere. I am going to copy this pattern for my little girls sewing class. I think I will cut it and give each one of them a different row to piece. We can use it for a benefit. Thanks so much. [email protected]

    Reply
  22. This is great! I love the tangerine instead of the usual baby colors, and I’ll bet the baby will love it, too. I haven’t run across your blog before, but I’ll be back. You had me at “You Had Me at Bonjour”!

    Reply
  23. I am just finishing the piecing for this quilt – 4 more rows to go! I actually asked Pink Castle Fabrics on Etsy to pick out the fabrics for me which I purchased in one bundle. Like a couple other commenters – I have no plans for the finished quilt I just couldn’t get it out of my mind! I’m now starting to think what other color combinations might work. Thank you so much for sharing!

    Reply
  24. Thanks for the tutorial Kirsty. I made the pattern yesterday. Easy to follow instructions and the layout graph was great. I used leftover fabrics from another quilt top. Shades of tangerine, some grey and a neutral background. It came up really well and has certainly improved my cutting skills. Thank you once again

    Reply
  25. THanks so much for this post! My nephew wanted a quilt and found this one – he wanted it to look “camo” so with my fabric choices and this layout – I think it worked. In teh camo colors – ya kinda also get the digital camo look / feel to it. I don’t have a blog but if YOu’d like to see a photo – comment me back and I’ll email it to you! Thanks again…I think it took like 12 hours of sewing to get the top together.

    Reply
  26. I’m so glad I’ve gone backwards in blog reading to find this gem!!! What a fabulous quilt. The design is just gorgeous and I happen to have a whole lotta tangerine fat quarters waiting for something fabulous. Congratulations on a really, really excellent quilt Kirsty! Hey, you may have been to late for the Tangerine Tango, but I think there is a 1/2 square challenge going on somewhere at the mo…Canoe Ridge Creations maybe? I hope you enter.

    Reply
  27. it is absolutely Fabulous Kirsty! And the tutorial is very welcome and great. Love love love this post! You are such a great person for quilting, the end result looks so perfectly shaped and the corners all match sooo well, you are a master at this. I hope we can meet one day and I can see you doing it, I can learn big time from you.

    xx
    Maaike

    Reply
  28. Awesome design, great colors, beautiful quilt! I have a little stack of orange fabrics waiting for me… I was inspired by that Tangerine Tango Challenge, but just need to make the time to whip something up. Thanks for your tutorial, and inspiration.

    Reply
  29. Absolutely love this quilt. Thanks for the great tutorial. No new babies expected at the moment..but three of my nieces have yet to have any…so there could be. Also, this would make a great full size, so maybe I will get one made sooner than later.
    CathyC in Alberta

    Reply
  30. I saw this posted through the Pink Chalk newsletter and clicked through because it is so unique – and orange! Learned a new trick too – the double thread no knot for binding!

    Reply
  31. Saw this quilt on the Pink Chalk newletter & it absolutely took my breath away…..sooo beautiful, you did a great job on the turtorial (I’m new to quilting) & the pictures you gave on the stitching were so informative! Have to ask what is name (maker) of that great material that you showed in rows? Would love to find something like that.
    Thanks again, signed up for your email too…..I can’t wait to see what else you come up with.
    Nancy

    Reply
    • Hi Nancy, that material was an Anthology fabric by Khristian Howell, the line was called High Society and the fabric is Orbs in Orange. It was also printed in green and purple. It’s about 2 years old now so a bit trickier to find – you could try etsy and see what you come up with. Otherwise, look for a large scale print that you could use to the same effect.

      Reply
    • What a sweetheart you are for giving such detailed information. I did check etsy & found the orbs in green, which was also my favorite in a color choice for this pattern.
      Thank you, thank you again….I am such a fan of your work. I am so glad pink chalk highlighted your wonderful quilt & design.
      xo, Nancy

      Reply
  32. I saw this over at Pink Chalk too and just had to see the whole process – I love the colors and the inventive pattern as well. You should make a block of this and send it for the QuiltCon challenge!

    Reply
  33. Kirsty, Great design!! I didn’t see it mentioned, but you could include that this is a ‘tesselation’ quilt as well. I love it!

    Reply
  34. I’m excited by the thought of other babies snuggling up in this design. Pink and cream sounds dreamy cmicha1460; I don’t have a website (.com), only this blog. I’m sure you can increase the size of the quilt by continuing the pattern off the quilt, if you know what I mean.

    Reply
  35. Saw this over at Pink Chalk Fabrics and just had to come see! I don’t know why but this quilt has captured my imagination more than just about any other I’ve seen lately; just lovely & so creative! Great tutorial too; I have several baby quilts planned as gifts this year and may have to do one of them like this! Thanks for the inspiration & instruction ;>)

    Reply
  36. Thank you for sharing! I love your design and will use it for my next baby quilt. The arrangement of HSTs as well as the quilting you did are most pleasing!

    Reply
  37. Thank you for the tutorial! I truly appreciate your links to the other sites – I had not seen your spray basting post. And the binding post you directed us to helps a lot. I must make this soon!! Thanks, Kirsty.

    Reply
  38. I have read the complete thing – you know!
    This is a great tue – and a wonderful pattern!! Thanky for this – and I will definitly do it one day!!

    Reply
  39. Wow Kirsty, this is FANTASTIC! It has wonderful movement. And a fresh & happy feel so typical of you! Excellent tutorial too. You are going to see these popping up all over the world I’m sure! Pure genius :) Ros x

    Reply
  40. Great Tutorial…no baby’s in my future, though I would welcome another great grandchild if my only married granddaughter would decide to be a mother. Sigh!!
    Love the colors, not so traditional. Love it.

    Reply
  41. What a great post! Thank you! The quilt is so gorgeous and I really want to try it as well now! I love to see your inspiration and how you highlight the way cutting affects patterned fabric! Very inspiring! So, now I have to think about what would be some cool contrasting colour pairs! :-)

    Reply
  42. Great quilt and superb use of color Kirsty! But most of all I am impressed and touched by the inspiration. Now you see the name of the foundry: Pont-a-Mousson? I grew up in that region of steel mills and iron mines, so it really hit home when I saw what beautiful thing came out from the picture of such a lowly telephone man-cover.
    Thank Kirsty,
    Annick
    annick5424 at gmail.com

    Reply
  43. Lovethe quilt!
    Great tutorial!
    Love that grid too! Sometimes you areinspired by themost crazy things. You havemade a most striking quilt out of it.
    I love it.
    I’d already seen itin that Tangerine Flickr pool and wondered what had become of it.
    You’ve done areally GR

    Reply
  44. Fabulous Kirsty. Love the pattern and thanks for the info on how you quilted it too. This is definitely going very close to the top of my list of what I must make! Thank you very much for the tutorial.xxxxx

    Reply
  45. Wow, fabulous tutorial and gorgeous quilt! Manhole covers have never looked prettier. I read every word and will be back to follow all your tips often I am sure.

    Reply
  46. Wow! Love this pattern and the fabrics you’ve chosen. Might have to get off my lazy butt and make this one, probably in aqua or pink. Thanks for the tutorial.

    Reply

Leave a comment

You'll be the first to know ;)

Quilting tutorials. Behind-the-scenes fun. Great deals on patterns. Join 14,000+ subscribers & stay in touch.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Bonjour Quilts logo nameplate