Last summer a very good friend of mine had a sweet little baby girl. Well, she and her husband decided to be surprised this time around and not find out the gender of the baby. If any of you remember, I also had a sweet little baby girl last summer. This, paired with the unknown gender all led to a delayed gift.
I had been wanting to make a baby blanket for the new arrival, but know that my friend is not particularly fond of the "unisex" items/colors/idea in general. So, I waited, got settled in my own new mommyhood and then gathered up the stamina to tackle a little project. ***A little disclaimer, this was all done well before Christmas but I am just now getting around to posting it. ;o)
If any of you have ever given a handmade gift, there's a little bit of pride along with a whole heap of self-consciousness that goes along with it. When I made a quilt for my friend's first baby, she loved it. More importantly, she used it ALL OF THE TIME. Now I'm not sure if she just put it out and made it look like she was always using it when I came over (which I highly doubt, because when you're a mom of tiny ones who has time to put on a show), but I do know that she told me she really liked it. And that is a really big motivator to do it again. So I did.
I decided to make her a little strip quilt. I am very happy how it turned out. So much so, that I almost kept it for myself. But because my friend is so gracious about her gifts I thought I would go ahead and give it to her precious baby girl. :o)
This is what I used:
- 5 different cotton fabrics
- 1 2/3 yrd printed flannel
- 1 2/3 yrd white flannel (or and filling flannel)
- fusible fleece
- fluffy scrap material (in my case it's pieces of blanket)
- P, L, A, & Y letter outlines
The first thing I did was figure out how wide my blanket was going to be, divide that by four, and cute a square out of each of the four fabrics I will be using for the strips.
Next, arrange the fabric strips in the order I wanted them in. They needed to be as long as the backing flannel piece.
(This is not the order they ended up in, I kept playing with them. Also, I used the flower fabric for the letters AND as a small strip above the blocks and below). If that doesn't make sense, it will in a minute when you see the completed quilt.
Now stack your letter fabric, filler fabric, and fusible fleece.
Then pin your letters in place. Make sure to pin through your paper and all three layers underneath.
Cut them out. If you look at the picture above, you can see that I wasn't quite happy with the original print out size. So I decided to plump them up a bit. So cute!!
Now sew them onto your squares from earlier. You can use whatever stitch you like, I just used a straight stitch around the edge. I wanted the frayed edges to come up a little and see the layers.
Now start sewing them in the order you want. I know this is the backsides, but do you see how I used the flowery fabric above and below the blocks...that's what I was talking about earlier. ;o)
I didn't take a picture of this next step. I ironed all the seams down, then topstitched them down. I like the little bit of detail it gives to the quilt.
Almost done!
Layer your quilt now.
Filler flannel
Backing flannel face up
Quilt top face down
Sew all the way around, leaving an opening to turn. Turn the quilt, sew it up, and take pictures of it. :o)
See why I almost kept it?
She looks so cute on it :o)
I hope this all made sense. If not, plese feel free to ask any questions. I'll do my best to clarify.
This is one of my favorites that I've made so far. Not really hard AT ALL. If you make one, email it to me, or post it down below. I would love to see it!
Have a wonderful week and I'll see you when I see you.
God bless,
~Amy
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