THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - The Finale

Today is the final entry in "The Making of a Baby Clothes Quilt" series on my blog. I'll tell you about assembling the quilt and show you the finished product.

After all the blocks are "sandwiched" and stitched, I lay them out on my cutting table in a random pattern and then make adjustments in placement until it has a look that pleases me. I love that moment when I can say to myself, "Yes, that's it!" And that's a remarkable moment for a perfectionist!

After the layout is finalized I pin the blocks in each row together to make sure that they stay in the proper order. Then I sew them together with a double seam to make sure the quilt is sturdy and will last thru lots of use. This shows one of the strips with the blocks pinned.

Next I pin and sew together the strips in sets of two. You will find that this makes assembly much easier, especially when you have limited space like I do. I use about a 3/4" seam for a nice bloom or fringe. Here are two of the strips after being sewn together.

Since this quilt had eight rows,  had four sets of two strips at this point. Then I sewed two sets of two strips together for two sets of four. Then one final seam to complete the assembly. After the quilt is all sewn together, I sew around the edge twice to make the space for fringing the edge.

This shows the completed quilt before clipping.

And, ta-da, here is the finished quilt. It measures about 55" x 62".

I just love all the red in this quilt. I can see it on a winter day, adorning a sofa or keeping someone warm while watching a movie or reading a book. I love this quilt and my customer told me she loves it, too. I love a success!



THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - part 5

Today I'll show you how I trim the framed blocks and assemble the "sandwiches". It's all sewing from here on.

The finished blocks need to be 9.5" square so I use my handy-dandy 9.5" square ruler to trim all the blocks. This ensures that all the blocks are the same size and have a straight edge all the way around. It's pretty easy if you find the center of each side and align the 4.75" mark with them. I center everything on the clothing square.

On this quilt I used two layers of flannel on the back. I always use one layer for the middle, but this customer wanted an especially cuddly quilt so we went with flannel for the back layer, too.

After assembling the "sammies" I put a couple of pins in to keep everything in line until they can be sewn together.

Then I stitch around the "ditch" where the frame is sewn to the square. This makes the stitching about invisible on the front. And it makes a nice square pattern on the back. Usually a rag quilt is sewn with an X, but that won't work with this type of quilt.

In the final installment, I'll show how I sew the blocks together and you can see the completed quilt. Thanks for your interest in this process and my quilts.

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - part 4

Now we get to the framing of the blocks. This gives us a cotton edge that fringes much better than the stabilized knits. The framing strips are 2.5" wide and 6.5" and 10" long. Of course I cut twice the number of blocks for each length. Below are the strips cut for this quilt.

I start by sewing the 6.5" strips down each side. (I like the way it looks with the longer strips across the top and bottom, but you could do it whichever way looks good to you.) I  use chain stitching to save on thread.

After the side strips are sewn I press them with the steam iron to make a nice, neat seam. Then the blocks are ready for the top and bottom strips.

These are sewn just like the side strips; chain sewning  again saves on thread.

And here's the finished framed block, ready for trimming. I'll show that and the "sandwiching" in the next blog post.



THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - part 3

Today I'm going to show you how I fuse the stabilizer to the blocks and also affix the appliques. Because the fabrics I use from the baby clothes vary in weight from thin tshirts to knitted sweaters, I like to use a lightweight fusible interfacing. I found the the Pellon 911FF - fusible featherweight - serves my purpose very well. All I need is something that will keep the knits from stretching out.

I cut the interfacing in 6.5" squares, just like the clothing blocks using my ruler and rotary cutter. All it takes to fuse the interfacing is a steam iron set on cotton for about 10 seconds.

Now the blocks are stabilized for the next steps that involve sewing.

After the stabilizer is applied, I trim any part of the squares that extend beyond the interfacing. Then it's on to the appliques.

For my appliques I use Pellon Wonder Under Regular weight. This helps hold the piece in place until I can sew it. It's very easy to use. Larger pieces like the one above are sewn using a fairly tight zig zag stitch. For small ones I just use a straight stitch around the perimiter.

This is a sample of the different appliques I used in this particular quilt. Some are very tiny and some cover just about the entire block.

Next time I'll show you how I frame the blocks so that the seams can be ragged.

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT part 2

Back for part 2 of the holiday baby clothes quilt show. I apologize for the delay, but I'll explain that in another blog. You'll understand. Ok, back to the quilt. This picture shows the opened garment with my 6.5" ruler, getting ready to cut a block.

Here's the cut block. It's really quite easy on the solid pieces. The blocks don't always come out exactly perfect, but that's ok.

When cutting out the blocks with a print or embroidery,I like to have the embellishment centered, but that isn't always possible.

Most tshirts have the picture or whatever, closer to the neck so the picture ends up on the upper portion of the block like this one. I just try to crowd the ruler as close to the ribbing on the neck as possible.  Even if  you get a part of the ribbing, you can later remove it and that portion will end up in the seam allowance of the framing. More about that later.

When the embellishment is on a part of the garment that can't be cut into a 6.5" block, I cut a block from another part of the garment and then cut around the embellishment. This will be part will be trimmed down and appliqued to the block at a later time. Sometimes I even have to use another garment for the background block like when I'm using the embellishment from a bib that doesn't have anything big enough for a block.

Here are a couple more examples. I try to cut the applique as big as I can. If I can cut a piece that's the same width as the block, it makes things a lot easier and looks better with less stitching involved. But sometimes you just have to go small. It all depends on the applique, its size and how it's located on the garment.

Each of these quilts offers it's own challenges and opportunities to learn something new. I guess that's why I like making them. They are each truely one of a kind.

On the next installment I'll talk about fusing stabilizer to the blocks and preparing the appliques.

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT part 1

For a long time now, people have been asking me to do a tutorial on making a baby clothes quilt. Well, I'm not very good at tutorials, so what I'm going to do is tell the story of one baby clothes quilt from beginning to end. With pictures, of course.

It all starts when the box of baby clothes appears at my doorstep, courtesy of the USPS, FedEx or UPS. I love the feeling of anticipation when that box arrives and I can't wait to open it.

This particular box that arrived yesterday contains all holiday themed baby items and looks very festive right from the beginning. Look at that cute little reindeer.

Of course I have to take out all the clothing items so I can ooh and aah over them. This batch has a bunch of onsies and footed pj's that will yield lots of colorful blocks. There are also lots of cute tshirts, sweaters and bibs that will contribute to a truely one of a kind quilt. The main colors, of course, will be red, green and white with some blue thrown in for contrast.

The next step will be to cut apart the items just enough for them to lay flat for cutting blocks. I'll show that in the next blog. Stay tuned to see how this quilt turns out.



PRETTY PINK BABY CLOTHES QUILT

This pretty quilt was a real pleasure to work on. The baby clothes from two little girls were just so cute and girly. Almost everything was in some shade of pink or had pink in the print. There were sparkly things and saucy things and sweet things.

What was really neat was that the customer had an item from each girl with her name on it plus tshirts that said "Big Sister" and "Little Sister". Those blocks made the quilt really personal so I put them right in the middle. The quilt was framed and backed with a pretty soft pink cotton and had white flannel in the middle.

The really sweetest thing about this quilt is that it was to be a Mother's Day gift for the customer. She put together all the clothing and made the color choice, but when I sent it back, she was not to open the box. Her husband would open it, look at the quilt and share it with the girls. Then it would be wrapped up and presented to my customer on Mother's Day. Of course she loved the quilt and I'm so happy I could help make this a very special day for the family.

NEW FOUR-PATCH BABY CLOTHES QUILTS

When I first started making the baby clothes quilts, I did 9-patch and then four-patch blocks. Gradually the quilts evolved into only solid blocks as I think they are prettier and they are easier for me to make. I recently had a customer who wanted three quilts - one regular and two smaller- and she wanted mostly four-patch blocks. She had clothes from a boy and a girl and wanted the large quilt to have the solid feature blocks and then four-patch blocks from each child. She also wanted a smaller quilt with clothing from just one for each. They were more work, but they turned out to be just charming.

This is the bigger quilt. I put the feature blocks in the middle and surrounded them with the four-patch blocks. I alternated the boy and girl blocks throughout the quilt.

The smaller quilts were made totally from four-patch blocks and are really cute. This is the girl quilt. It's mostly pastels and cute prints.

And here's the boy quilt. It's in darker colors with lots of stripes.

Each of the smaller quilts has a solid, white block for eventual monogramming. Neat, huh? Again, it was the customer's idea. The customer also chose the solid yellow for the backing and framing and it was the perfect choice, dontcha' think?

I had enough leftovers from the clothes that I'm making a fourth regular size quilt for my customer. It will be four-patch blocks with two solid blocks for the boy and two for the girl. Just love working with all these cute little garments.





ANOTHER BABY CLOTHES QUILT DONE

I recently finished and shipped another baby clothes quilt that I am very proud of. The customer sent enough clothing that I was able to have an embroidered or printed design in every block. It looks like a miniature tshirt quilt. There were a number of sports-related blocks and I used a cute blue fabric with multicolor stars to play off that theme. At about 32" x 47" it will make a great crib, bed or lap quilt. And a great wall hanging, too.

I so enjoyed making this quilt that I'm going to ask for more clothing items for quilts in the future so I can have more of the solid blocks with a design. With all the cute baby clothes out there these days I don't think that will be a problem.

BABY CLOTHES PILLOW COVERS

Here are the two travel pillow covers I made to match the last two baby clothes quilts. For the front I just made two four-patch blocks and framed them with the same fabrics I used in the quilts. For the blue/green one I used the green for the framing and then the blue for the back.

blue/green front

blue/green back

For the pink one I used the backing fabric for the framing and made the back from some of the flannel receiving blanket my client asked me to use in both quilts.

pink front


pink back

The great thing about these pillow covers is that they are removeable and washable! It was totally my client's idea and I think they will look so cute with the quilts.

PINK BABY CLOTHES QUILT

I finished the second baby clothes quilt for my great client. This one is predominately pink and I just love it. The framing and the backing are both in a beautiful rose pink with tiny dots in pink, green and cream.

front

butterfly appliques

love!

I also just finished two travel pillow covers to match this pink quilt and the previous blue/green one. I'll put those pics in the next blog.

NEW BABY CLOTHES QUILT

I just finished another baby clothes quilt and I think it's the best one yet! Of course I feel that way about just about every project. My client and I had to compromise on the backing color and I think it turned out great. My client wanted green as it's the recipient's favorite color, but I thought blue would be better as most of the fabrics were in or had some shade of blue. So we compromised by using both and I just love it!!!

One of my favorite things about making these quilts is making appliques out of some of the embroidery on these clothes. I also try to transfer any cute little pockets, too. So much fun!

Here are some pictures of the quilt. And, of course, it's even better in person!

front

Love the dinosaur!!

Pockets and puppies

Back

I'm now working on one more quilt for this wonderful client and this one is for a girl with lovely shades of pink. I'm hoping to get it finished by the end of the weekend and will post pics as soon as I can.

BABY CLOTHES RAG QUILT

I finally finished the first rag quilt I've ever made from baby clothes. It was definitely a challenge since most baby clothes these days are knits, but it was a fun challenge. I used a featherweight fusible interfacing to stabilize the knits and bordered each block with cotton fabric. There's flannel in the middle with more cotton on the back. I only hope my customer is half as pleased with it as I am.

Close up of quilt - I used a combination of solid and pieced blocks.

Close up of pieced block showing the cotton borders.

I'm now working on another one using similar baby clothes and a yellow border and back. So whatcha' think? Do you think maybe other people would be interested in an heirloom quilt like this?

HAPPY LABOR DAY

Happy Labor Day, y'all!! Are you laboring today or taking some time off? Whatever you are doing, I hope you have a great day.

I'll be doing some sewing, but I wouldn't call it laboring. The most laboring I do these days is making quilts or whatever for sale. Today I'm working on a round robin quilt. My Quilters Corner Group is doing this and it's a lot of fun. If you aren't familiar with the process it goes like this - everyone makes a center block for their quilt and then sends it on to the next person designated for them to add to it. On it goes to each person in turn for more additions, while each person's quilt does the same thing. At the end each quilt returns to the originator and they have a one-of-a-kind heirloom quilt.

I'm working on quilt number 3, if I remember correctly. I wish I could post pictures, but no one is supposed to know what's going on with their quilt til they get it back. I'll post before and after pics when this is all done. Well, for most of them, anyway. I didn't take pics of the first one or of mine before it left. Although I'm no where near an experienced quilter, this process hasn't been quite as hard as I expected. I have to admit that I've gone to the internet for inspiration as I don't know all the possibilities, yet. Anyway, I'm having fun with it. I've already decided what to do with this particular quilt and all I need to do is finish cutting out the backing and the flannel and putting it together. I'll make the Sept. 15 mailing deadline with time to spare, I think.

For "labor", I'm working on an interesting project. A former custom quilt customer asked if I could make a quilt out of baby clothes. My first thought and my response were "I don't know why not!" So that's been my project for a few weeks. It's been an interesting creative process and is moving along nicely. I have one ready for clipping and have started assembling the second. There will be two more after this. I'm thinking of offering custom baby clothes quilts in my Etsy store when I'm done with these. You send me the clothes and I'll make the quilt. Do you think there's a market out there for that? For heirloom raggy quilts made with baby clothes? I'll post pics when I'm done with the first two. Please let me know what you think.