The (new) Baby Blanket

I thought it would be nice to make something up specifically for this baby. I have lots of wonderful handmade things that the baby will use, but almost all are hand me downs from Tuesday’s time as a little one. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all, and it has made prep much easier, but I figured something special just for this summer baby would be wonderful.

I was VERY inspired by this quilt from Blue Elephant Stitches. In fact she has an Etsy shop and I thought about just ordering one from her, but my stash is seriously too big to justify that (however if you’re not a quilter and want an adorable heirloom check out her site!). So I decided on the same type of big log cabin blocks with fabric from my stash.

I even used a little bit of old clothing and some vintage sheets. I love how it turned out (it’s about 55 inches square). I loved the rainbow of fabrics so much I decided to piece them in color order down the back.

Here is a little better view of them:

It’s a little hard to tell how I quilted it from these pictures, but I just did simple squares of various sizes around each block. I also did a big grid going through the edges of the nine blocks.

The one thing I did have to buy was binding fabric. I had my heart set on stripes and I just couldn’t find anything that was right. I tried ordering a few different multi-colored stripes on line, but nothing worked. Sciarrino picked me up a blue stripe at Fabric Depot, but it wasn’t quite right. I finally found this when I went to A Common Thread. I wanted to point that out because I had no idea they had such cool fabric. It’s not the biggest place, but a well curated collection I would say.
I want to do a quilt like this again. It came together super quickly and I love using the center of the blocks to show off prints or fussy cut something. Also I used plain white flannel as the batting. Not only is the quilt lightweight, but I didn’t even baste it because the flannel is so grippy to the fabric.
Ah and this reminds me, thank you for the sewing machine advice. I have my heart set on a Bernina now. I’m looking for an older used one, at least to have as a back up, and am going to wait to see what they come out with later this summer (and how much sewing time I get in with two kids!) to make a decision on something bigger for quilting specifically. I used my mom’s Pfaff to quilt this and it went pretty well.
 

Join the Conversation

9 Comments

  1. Love this quilt and the inspiration piece, too! My kids are 10 and 6 and they each know which baby blanket was made for them by me. Like you,I had plenty of hand-me-downs for the second baby, but it was special to craft something just for him.

  2. That is adorable…It will look perfect when your little one is wrapped up snug inside 🙂

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *