Baby blanket – trials and tribulations

I wrote earlier about finding the perfect fabric for a coworker’s coming baby. Here are the fruits of the effort:

The perfect fabric

 

The backing

 

The blanked turned out pretty cute, but not exactly as planned. I thought this would be the perfect project to try some machine quilting on, since it was small. However, the flannel fabrics kept sticking to the all cotton batting, making it almost impossible to lay the layers completely flat. So, I ended up tying the quilt to finish it.

On the plus side, the flannels are super soft and it should make a very comfortable blanket for a newborn. 🙂 Readers – does anyone have suggestions to offer for layering batting and flannel fabrics and keeping everything smooth?

An owl softie for Cameron

I have made some improvements over my last owl. I love the bright, springy, girlie but not icky fabric. And the sewing has improved drastically since the last effort, if I may say so myself.

This owl, along with some baby blocks, was a gift to my cousin Cameron for her first birthday. She was giving the owl hugs before we left, so, I am hoping that’s a good sign!

Quick, cute baby gift project

Have you ever had a baby shower to go to and needed a gift really quickly? Or just a little something to add a homemade touch to a baby gift? This is the perfect project for a situation like this. If you craft on a regular basis, you probably have everything you need already. The project takes fewer than 30 minutes, and best of all – babies actually love them.

Cute, easy and practical - can you beat that?

First of all, can we mention how cute the fairytale flannel fabric is??

OK. This is a taggie-style little blanket, perfectly sized for baby’s pincher grasps and small enough to stick into a diaper bag, tuck into a stroller pocket or comfort a baby in a baby carrier. Making these is super easy. Cut out two equal sized squares from flannel fabric. This project had 6X6 inch squares. Cut out a variety of different satin ribbons – about 2.5-3 inches long.

Place flannel fabric squares right sides together. Insert satin ribbon, folded in half, between the two pieces of flannel, with tails of ribbon sticking out. Pin into place. Repeat until you have enough ribbon ‘taggies’. Sew 1/4 inch seam around the entire square, leaving about 1.5 inches unsewn in order to flip the blanket right side out. Flip right side out, sew remaining space closed. Then, sew a second time around the completed blanket on the right side, half an inch in, securing ribbons in place so that ribbons do not detach when baby plays/sucks on the tags. And that’s it, you’re done!

An owl for Luke

I brought in an owl I sewed for my cousin’s first birthday (to be posted this weekend after she has received it) to work today, and my coworker Kim requested one for her son. I realized I didn’t have many boy friendly fabrics. So, I broke my long streak of not buying fabrics happily, and went to the cute sewing store in downtown Maryville to pick out some beautiful woolen, brushed flannels in gender-neutral and boy-friendly prints.

When I finished the owl cut outs as I traditionally do, something seemed missing. I decided to add eyelashes and it made him perfect.

The only downside to this beautifully soft fabric (perfect for a baby boy’s hugs) is that it was much stretchier than the quilting cotton I was used to working with, which meant when it came time to stuff him, the stuffing stretched his shape a bit. However, I think it can be a worthy tradeoff for a snuggly baby toy.

I wish I had a better place to take photos after dark – the colors are terrible in this photo. Look at the eyelashes, though!

And on that note, back to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Yes. I don’t know which is better – the adorable dogs or the hysterical commentary.

Also, the Purina shelter ads are making me cry.

Other quilt examples

Yesterday I found some old photos I thought I had lost, of quilts I had made and given away. It was more exciting than I can even express.

So here it is, photographic evidence of two other quilts I have created:

I made this baby quilt for a stylish friend of mine in San Francisco, who so graciously spent months in Missouri leading up to Obama’s election. I didn’t want to use traditional baby fabric, so I chose colors that went with some of the furniture they had in their nursery. I hand-tied this quilt with thin, cream-colored satin ribbon and extra poofy batting to keep baby nice and warm. The pattern is here.

Baby quilt - Yellow Brick Road design

Closeup

And the last project I found pictures of – a wedding gift for one of my oldest and dearest friends. This again is a strip-based quilt, only this is made of 5X10 pieces with no staggered seams. I was feeling a bit more confident with my measuring and sewing skills by this point. 🙂 I also sewed a thin contrasting border of 2X12 inch pieces to add some more interest. The quilter I took this to actually chose the binding, and I just loved it.

🙂

Backing

Stitching closeup

Thanks to Matt for modeling. 🙂