Part 2 Baby Quilt

I decided to use 12 x 12 squares and make the quilt itself square.  This helps for a couple reasons.  The total size will be about 42 inches square.  It will be useful as a play blanket when the baby is little and due to the symmetry there is no top or bottom of the blanket.  I made a blanket for my daughter and it is a rectangle.  I find that I always turn in so that I can wrap the long side around her so I won't have to worry about that with this blanket.

The actual cuts were 12.5 x 12.5 for the internal blocks, 3.5 x 3.5 for the corner blocks, 3.5 x 36.75 for the border strips. Everything was done with a 1/4 inch seam.

I have never made a quilt before (not with actual pieces).  The most challenging part was the corner pieces and getting the boarder, corner and blocks to make a nice corner where they meet.  I didn't follow any directions on this so I was just going on assumptions, some of which turned out wrong but hey, at least I learned.

I still have to iron the top, cut the batting and the back and sew that all together.  Then I will do a cheater sort of quilt with embroidery floss.  The point of quilting, in general, is to keep the inner batting layer from shifting.   Its also decorative but I'm more utilitarian and time saving.  All I did was get several coordinating colors of embroidery floss and tack down each corner on each intersection of fabric with a small stitch through the back.  I would leave about a 2 inch thread coming out of each end and tie a square knot.

Current Projects

Crayon pouch with small note pad.  

You can find a tutorial in a ton of places online.  For this one, I used a fabric place mat I found at Walmart and a small notepad I found in a 3 pack at the store for about $2.  The crayon slots are about an inch wide each and with the notepad, I fit all but the black and white crayons from a 16 count box.  I thought about cutting off the top extra fabric but I used it as a flap to ensure the crayons don't fall out and the paper stays clean for the next use.  I figure if I run out of paper I can always use index cards, or computer paper cut smaller in a pinch.

 

Bear Ears Hooded Towel

I used the tutorial from Make it and Love it.  The tricky part is that the towel is thick and gets thicker with each fold.  It also lints and can snag if you aren't careful.  Some parts I had to reinforce by hand because the thickness would not fit in my machine (I'm not an expert and there may be some other foot or modification I could make to my machine but I didn't take the time to figure it out.)

My daughter was not cooperative as a model.

Bandana Dress

I have yet to try this on my daughter because she is not being helpful in that regard especially when she is wearing one of her favorite dresses already.  This was SUPER easy and really fast.  I want to try it on her and maybe modify it a little for more shape but as it is the whole thing took 15-20 minutes (with a toddler distracting/helping) and would probably take 10 minutes had I done it during her nap. I used grosgrain ribbon because I had it on hand.

I was not on a weird red streak, I just was trying to get all the red stuff done before I switched thread because switching to a new bobbin and thread and dusting out the other color is not as fun as just sewing.

Baby Quilt

Well, I made a blanket for Isabella last time around.  I thought she might be willing to let me use it for her little brother this time, but it seems she is quite attached to it.  So I ventured out to JoAnn's to get some fabric.  And here is what I came up with:

I plan on making a square quilt as opposed to one that "fits" the crib.  My reasons are 1) blankets are not usable for babies in a crib and are dangerous so I want it to be useful besides that. 2) once we do use it in the crib I find that the actual crib sized blankets are too narrow and don't wrap the baby well since they kick it off so easily anyway 3) if it is square there is no right or wrong end so I won't have to worry about it 4) its much easier to plan a quilt that is square. :o).

As you can see I went the primary route with bedding (for both Isabella and Alexander) because I like it and it will be useful beyond the toddler years.

Here is a link to an "easy" quilt to make that I used as a reference/starting point.