Natalie’s Baby Quilt

It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve written a blog post. But I hadn’t realized just how long it’s been until I went searching for the post I wrote about William’s baby quilt. Well, William is now 4 years old and has a beautiful baby sister named Natalie, who is 4 months old. Talk about time flying by…

I wanted to make a quilt similar to William’s quilt, but I wanted it to look a little different. So to coordinate with Natalie’s nursery, I pulled pink and coral and lavender fabrics from my stash. Of course I had to add a few new fabrics, including a crazy cat print so the family’s cat Cole would be represented.

I cut 25 WOF (width of fabric) strips 2 1/4″ wide from all the fabrics. Then I cut each strip into two or three varying lengths. I made a big pile with all the strips and stirred them up. Using the basic process for making a jelly roll race quilt, I sewed the strips together in random order (note the ends of the strips were sewn straight across and not on the diagonal as William’s quilt).

I quickly ended up with a sewn rectangle about 35″ wide. Next I worked on the pieced letters for Natalie’s name. I made the name section 7″ x 35″. The letters are about 4 – 4 1/2″ tall. I followed the basic techniques in Tonya Ricucci’s book Word Play Quilts.

I cut across the rectangle about 10″ from the top and inserted Natalie’s name. Then it was time for quilting and binding.

Here’s Natalie on her new quilt. Those curls…those rosy cheeks! She’s playing with a little coordinating taggie toy I made with leftover fabrics and ribbon loops. I think she likes it 🙂

Let’s Go! Baby Projects to Sew

Our first grandchild is almost six months old and another grandchild is on the way any day now. So needless to say, I’ve been inspired to design baby quilts and baby projects to sew.

Here’s a peak at a car seat tent and tagged quilt that I just designed for the winter issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited magazine.

The tent (or some folks call it a canopy) features a peak-a-boo window that can be closed for warmth and protection or can be opened to check on baby and provide ventilation. To keep it from getting too heavy, no batting is used. The tent is simply backed with flannel and lightly quilted.

The coordinating tagged quilt ties onto the car seat handles to keep it in place for the ride. Ribbon loops along all the edges are a fun and entertaining touch for a busy baby. And once you get to your destination the quilt can be used as a play mat. (MQU Editor Carol Zentgraf’s granddaughter, Betsy, gave both projects her approval!)

I fell in love with these fabrics from the “On Our Way” collection by Riley Blake. They are colorful, fun, gender-neutral and perfect for these projects. I was so excited to discover they had both flannels and quilting cottons in the group.

Check out the Winter 2015 issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited, pages 38-45 for all the details and complete instructions.