Free quilt pattern: I Spy a Windmill

Written by Diane Harris on August 7, 2025. Posted in Blog, Complimentary, Fabric Savvy, How-tos and Ideas, Inspiration, Quilt Lifestyle

If you need a quick baby, toddler or donation quilt, here you go!

I love a Windmill block, and this scrappy I Spy version comes together quickly. The blocks finish at 16″ and the quilt is 52″ x 52″.

It can be tricky to get novelty fabrics to play together nicely. I think a lot of I Spy quilts look pretty chaotic.

When this quilt started looking like scrap vomit, I tried grouping four novelty prints of the same color to form each Windmill.

The backgrounds are all manner of prints but they’re all pretty light. When they weren’t light enough, I turned them over and used them wrong side up.

In the orange block above, there are monkeys, birds and trucks used wrong side up. One surprise bonus to this was that my grandchildren loved the extra effort required to find these items! It added a little more mystery to the quilt.

Just above, there are foxes and ducks used wrong side up. The helicopters would have been another candidate for turning over but in this case I left them right side up. Totally a judgment call.

Another detail I like in this quilt is the small Mickey Mouse heads in the binding print. They’re the perfect size to peek at you from either side of the quilt.

Each block takes 8 patches:

4 of your similarly colored novelty prints cut 4.5″ x 8.5″

4 light background novelty prints cut 4.5″ x 8.5″

Sew each colored patch to a background patch and press toward the color:

Arrange them as shown below. You can have your windmills spin clockwise or counter-clockwise but you want them all to spin in the same direction for this project. Sew the top pair together and sew the bottom pair together.

Sew across the middle to join the halves and complete the block. The block should be 16.5″ square at this point.

If you want more detail, check out my basic windmill tutorial. Blocks are smaller but process is the same!

Make 9 blocks and join in 3 rows of 3 blocks each. Sew the rows together.

For the border:

Cut 48 light rectangle bricks 2.5″ x 4.5″

Cut 4 red corner squares 2.5″ x 2.5″

Sew 12 of these patches end to end for a side border. Repeat to make a second side border. Add these borders to the sides of the quilt.

Sew 12 of these patches end to end and sew a red square to each end for the top border. Repeat to make the bottom border. Sew these borders to the top and bottom of the quilt.

Layer and baste together the quilt top, batting and backing. Quilt as desired. Bind the quilt.

If you make an I Spy quilt using the Windmill block, I’d love to see it. Please send me a photo: diane@stashbandit.net.

I use EQ8 to bring my quilt ideas to life. It’s a powerful tool and if you want to design your own quilts or just see how your fabrics will look in the finished quilt, give it a go!

Catch a short video I made about this quilt on Instagram.

Quilt on,

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Tags: free quilt pattern, how-tos, make extraordinary scrap quilts, quilt design, scrap quilts, windmill quilt block