Baby Quilt Features Big Prints Mixed with a Liberated Style

A baby quilt completed in 2015 makes use of big prints.

In my life the year 2015 has been the year of the baby quilt. In the past 11 months I have completed six baby quilts. I have stood by my mantra, "Every child deserves their own quilt," but it has meant a busy year. In the quilt pictured, I wanted to feature fabric from the line Peak Hour for Riley Blake by Kellie Wulfshon. This fabric called to me because of the size of the printed cars and trucks. It would have been much easier to  back the whole piece of fabric and quilt, but I wanted to add my own touch. I love many of  the fun prints that are out on the market and like incorporating them into my designs. For this quilt I added a row of my wonky flying geese, a row of curvy sticks, some pinwheels, hour glasses and finished it off with zig zags for the top and bottom rows.

The year 2015 has been a busy year for other reasons as well. My oldest son got married and it was a fun time. The monumental event also caused me to step back and take a good look at things around me. Since my family was hosting a brunch after the wedding it was time to spruce up the patio. The picnic table deserved a new coat of paint for the event.

The cars baby quilt is displayed on my backyard picnic table that recently went from a color called Beach Blue to Garden Green. On the table sits my truck garden, an old toy truck that has been repurposed as a planter for Hen and Chicken plants. Since my new daughter-in-law  has an agriculture degree specializing in community gardens,  I thought the toy truck planter should be in the picture.

Details of my wonky flying geese row.

Secret messages are often written in my quilting. 

The next time you see a great print, baby or otherwise, think of a different way to present the print in your next quilt. Or if you see a vintage toy truck repurpose it as a planter. The possibilities are endless. 

Deadlines set the tone, keep us moving in a positive direction

The front of the Ed Emberley inspired baby quilt.

If it wasn't for deadlines I might not ever get anything finished. So with the deadline of babies being born I completed two baby quilts in December. Welcome to the world little ones. And along with baby quilts comes an opportunity to give a new quilting technique or fabric a try. For my first new arrival I made a quilt with none other than Ed Emberley fabric. When explaining this fabric to others I was surprised that not everyone has heard of this fantastic artist that taught my own children to draw with his "how to draw" series of books for children.
Along with this fun quilt for the new little girl, I gave her older brothers, ages 5 and 7, the books along with drawing supplies. I hope everyone enjoys their Ed Emberley experience.

The back of the quilt includes a panel with large drawings I could not cut.

There was a great panel, sort of, that went with the line of Ed Emberley fabrics. The panel shows with dotted lines how to cut around the large drawing and how they can be used. It was such a great panel that I left it whole and added it to the back of the baby quilt. I even left the selvage showing on purpose because it too added a special element to the quilt.

On to my next deadline. I have a name to add to the next baby quilt and need to get it delivered. Then I may make a list of things I want to accomplish for 2015. I'm not much of a list maker but there are things I really want to finish.................. Are you a list maker?

Jiffy Baby Quilt for the Little One

My Jiffy Baby Quilt goes together quickly.

Another baby arrives and this time I put together a quick quilt I call my "Jiffy Baby Quilt." Just by looking at the photo you can get an idea of how this is a simple quilt. This is very liberated and can be made from pulling fabrics from your stash and scrap bags. When I cut the colorful strips of various widths I cut the white background pieces at the same time and stored them together until I was ready to sew. Just make sure your rotary cutting blade is sharp because it will be going through 3 or four thicknesses of fabric. 

I love the name "Jiffy" in this quilt for several reasons. One is it reminds me of my youth and learning clothing construction with "Simplicity Jiffy" patterns. The patterns always had only one to four main pattern pieces and were perfect for beginners or for constructing a new outfit quickly." Jiffy"  also reminds me of  the cornmeal mix. This is a great product for the beginning cook or the cook in a hurry. I love that the iconic box label has remained the same for years. Here's to the word "Jiffy."

Back to the quilt. I started this quilt by picking out a backing fabric first. Sometimes I do that because it helps me to narrow down what colors will be on the front of the quilt. I chose the cute owl fabric because..... it is cute.

The cute owl fabric is the back of the Jiffy Baby Quilt.

The owl fabric has great colors so it was easy to find coordinating fabrics from my stash for the front. The other reason I like this style of quilt is because I can have fun with the quilting. I use my home sewing machine to quilt. Baby quilts fit nicely under the throat of my machine and this quilt measures 36"x38" so there is no need to piece the back.

 I quilted each strip of this quilt using a different quilt pattern. It is a great place to try out new designs. The other thing I like to do is include the baby's name and birth date in the quilting. This is a personal touch that I hope makes it special for the family.

This is a close up of the quilted name , weight and date of birth.

A close-up of  some of the playful quilting stitches.

Please try making your own version of "Jiffy Baby Quilt." I would love to see what you come with, you can email me at this link.

As you know I am working on my Hipster profile. (Owls are hipster and so is Instagram.)  I would like to invite you to follow me on Instagram @sundayfarmingquilter or go to this link. I will be tagging some of my blog photos to share with others.

Baby Quilt x 2 when Twins Arrive

My mantra, "every baby deserves their own quilt," puts me into quilting action when I hear that there is going to be a new arrival. Such was the case when I learned that my son's former college room mate and his wife were expecting a baby. I try to have a few baby quilts waiting in the wings just in case I get behind and need a quilt. But this new family is very special to me and I wanted to make the quilt special. I also like to experiment with new designs in baby quilts because, let's face it, they are about one-fourth the size of a bed quilt. I chose to use my pink scraps and make a pineapple quilt with a green fabric as the background. It is a pattern that I had used before and wanted to use again because I was in the mood for scrappy. The pieces in this quilt are all cut from 1.5 inch strips. Even though it is a baby quilt there a lot of seams and the project is fairly slow.

Pineapple baby quilt from my pink scraps.

I completed the pineapple baby quilt project in plenty of  time before the new arrival. That is until I received word that there would be more than one baby! Twins Kate and Paige have arrived and they are identical, however their quilts are not. I have trouble doing the same quilt more than once so the second quilt is from I pattern that I had been wanting to try. It is a wonky zig zag design. I did keep it in the same color scheme of pink and green. And as always, I quilted the baby's name, date of birth and weight in the quilting. Welcome to the world girls. It is always so wonderful to hear about and celebrate new life.

The wonky zig zag baby quilt.

I include the name and birth date in the quilting.

Early arrival moves baby quilt to the front of the pile

This quilt finished 46" x 56".

I thought I had eight more weeks to get this baby quilt finished but the baby had different plans. After a friend delivered her baby early I decided Saturday would be spent finishing the quilt top for her new son. The top was completed earlier this year in anticipation of a new arrival. I always like to keep a baby quilt or two in progress because I believe every baby needs their own quilt. So after I learned it was a boy the quilt top featuring fabric with fun bugs, birds and creatures would have a home. This was a great quilt to try out some new quilting stitches as well. I gave each strip in the quilt a different quilting pattern.

I quilt using my home sewing machine and find baby quilts the right size for gathering all the fabric and batting in the throat of the machine. I also featured some of the cute fabric in this quilt by fussy cutting the images. After doing so I realized that these images need to stand out. So I used a few of the 200 and more programed decorative stitches that came with my machine. Different stitches were used to highlight each fussy cut image. When was the last time you used those great stitches? Other than the blanket stitch my machine stitches are certainly underutilized.

I have also posted some closer images of  my quilting and stitches. My challenge to you this week is to think about using the great decorative stitches that your machine has to offer.

Fussy cut bugs in a jar with decorative stitches.

More fussy cut images with decorative stitches.

I was able to try some new quilting patterns.

Fun boy fabric featuring caterpillars and ants.