The Baby Quilt

This week's Pin: Scrap Quilt

Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flossyblossy/4801667574/in/photostream/

Who's this for?:  My Neice's First Child
Cost of materials: Scraps and Wadding (leftovers), White Broadcloth ($4.00),
Green Cotton Poplin for backing ($11.99)
Difficulty: Average -  Straight machine sewing, lightning speed for an experienced quilter, or a couple of days for a quilting beginner.

My niece is due to have a baby next month.  Everyone is so excited as this will be the first baby born into the next generation of our family.  An invitation to the Baby Shower arrived recently so this is now an urgent project.  This is a small quilt for the baby to lie on when it's on the floor, or can be used in the pram or the cot.

I'm not a regular quilter but I have made a few items and I understand the concept.  This type of quilt is for using up scraps leftover from previous projects.  The only purchase was the white and the backing fabric.  There are no instructions for this quilt so I'm using the image above from flossyblossy for inspiration to create my own design.  I see that each scrap is a different width - good, I don't have to measure everything.

My lovely neighbour Angela is a quilter and gave me her scrap bag to use.  Wow, this bag weighs more than a small child!  My neice loves green and we do not know the sex of the baby so I've chosen predominantly green and yellow scraps.  There are a lot of Pinterest Pins about how to best announce the sex of a forthcoming baby.  This is not a common practise in Australia but perhaps it's increasing in trend.  I rarely hear what sex the baby is until after it's born.  Then, everyone bolts for the closest baby shop to buy up the right colour clothes!

Angela's scraps are already in strips.  After only 15 minutes of snipping, I've cut the scraps into pieces ready to sew.  What I like about this project is that measuring is not necessary at this stage, only when I assemble the "stripes" so it's well underway after very little time.  Under an hour spent at the machine and now the strips of scraps are ready for the next step.

Sew each stripe with the white panels in between.  Measure the wadding and sew to the back of the quilt.  Now, measure the fabric for the backing and sew.  I've chosen a patterned fabric for the back with a lot of colour as this is the side that will be down on the floor and needs to be forgiving as it will get dirty.  The patterned top side is also going to be hiding marks well as this is the side baby will lie on, dribble on, spit milk on and perhaps even leak poo on.

I love it. I'm really pleased with the result.  The original quilt has each row a different colour so I replicated this, keeping each row either predominantly yellow or green.  I hope she loves it (remember, don't tell my niece,  it's a secret until Sunday).

Next week I'm making a travelling toothbrush holder.

Soops

Our lives are like quilts - bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love...  Author Unknown

Quilting is cutting big pieces of fabric into little pieces and sewing them back together into a big piece...  Author Unknown