Easy Baby Quilt

Making an easy and sweet baby quilt!

I love to quilt! 

Other than two twin sized quilts that I made for my kiddos….one with primary-coloured dinosaurs and one with a girlie, crib-sized panel that I added borders to make it a twin, I have only made lap quilts or baby quilts. The ones I made for my kids was way back at the beginning of my sewing days and I did not follow any quilting rules…I didn’t even know that there were quilting rules! Considering that, I have come a long, long way.

Free Spirit Creating

I am most happy if I can look at pictures (mostly Pinterest), see something I like, and then recreate it on my own without referring to anyone’s pattern or measurements.

I want to and plan to make a king-sized quilt for my bed (we sleep on a queen bed but love the extra width of a king quilt) one day. I have several quilt tops in varying degrees of doneness. 

Constructive Down Time

This past winter I made two baby quilts for two babies born to two of our nephews and their wives. One for a boy and one for a girl. I started this project to help me pass the time during the severe lockdown that did not allow me to see my two grandsons, one of whom was an infant, and my heart was broken. But that is a story for another day. 

Planning and sewing two baby quilts proved to be a wonderful distraction to my woes. 

I wanted to create these quilts from my own stash, without any additional purchases. I wasn’t 100% successful in this, but I am happy to say that I did pretty good!

Scrappy ESQUE

I love the scrappy look and went for that…sort of. I decided on a colour scheme and picked fabric from my stash that fell within that boundary.  

I had an adorable collection of coordinating fat eighths that had been sitting on my shelf for a long time and I just knew that this was the perfect time to bring it out and let it shine! So that was my starting point, and it determined my colour palette for this project. 

And of course, I wanted a good amount of white in there to set it off…. I love a good dose of white in most of my quilt projects. There is just something so cheerful about the white parts showing off the colours!

I will try to explain my process and results for the baby girl’s quilt.

Online Inspiration

I was inspired by a full-sized quilt that I saw online. I drew my own version/pattern and decided what size each block would be after doing a practice block.

So, I drew a rough sketch of what I wanted the block to look like and created my pattern. 

Cutting

I started off by cutting 18 white 8” squares and 18 coloured 8” squares.

Then, on each block, I marked a triangle in one corner that was 2.5” X 6” and cut on that line.

Sewing

I then took all of the white triangles and sewed them to the coloured squares (1/4” seam allowance) to replace the triangle that had been cut out. And then repeated the process for the white squares, giving them coloured triangles.

Once I again had 36 squares (that were now rather wonky), I carefully pressed the seams toward the darker side. 

Squaring Up

Following this I used my rotary cutter to square each block up to 7.5”. If you end up with 7.25” blocks that is totally fine! Whatever size block you end up with will work, as long as all the blocks are the same size. 

Making Blocks!

Now it is time to put four together to form one big block that creates the star pattern.

Almost Done!

Next, I arranged my blocks in a pleasing pattern. I enjoy the creative process. There are no rules here, just create your masterpiece. The resulting pinwheel pattern makes me happy. I sewed them together by rows.

White in quilts make me happy so it was an easy decision to add a border of white. I didn’t want it to be completely square, so I made the side borders narrow (2”) and the end borders to be a bit wider (3.25”).  

Layers

Make your sandwich: backing, batting, top.

For the backing I purchased a coordinating baby print flannelette. I prewashed the flannelette even though I did not prewash the rest, because it will definitely shrink differently than the quilting cotton.

Perfect or Finished?

Choosing a quilting pattern always causes a pause in my project because I want it to look great but I know I don’t have great skill in this area…I also lack the patience that I should have! Wanting it to feel soft and cozy, I knew I should keep the quilting lines well spaced apart. I decided to use the pinwheel pattern to dictate my quilting and in the end followed my seams in echo quilting. I kept the quilting lines quite well spaced so that the quilt would be soft. The more quilting you add, the stiffer it will feel.

There is often a battle in my brain over the issue of wanting the quilting to be perfect versus my impatience to get it done. So, while far from perfect, I am happy enough with how it turned out. 

Really my quilting is a testament to the fact that you can create a usable and cozy quilt without it being a showcase piece! 

I imagine that sweet baby lying on it while she coos and giggles for her doting parents and I am satisfied.