Baby Quilts for My Baby!

I am about to be a grandmother! This is the first grandchild on our side of the family (the other side has 11, so are already well-versed in grandparenthood!) The little guy is expected to arrive in early October, so it won’t be long now. Of course when our daughter told us she was pregnant, the first thing I did was start making baby quilts. And now I can’t stop myself. The poor kid will have more quilts than he knows what to do with, but really I’m shamelessly ok with that! I’ll try to hold off making more until he is old enough to request one and help pick out the fabric. No promises though!

I started off with these two little quilts that are both made from scraps from the wedding guest book quilt I made my daughter and son-in-law for their wedding. Lots of symbolism in that – a baby quilt made from a wedding quilt! I actually pieced these right after I finished the wedding quilt, but put them away. Somehow it seemed like bad luck, or at least like “that” mother-in-law to have baby quilts ready before there was even a baby on the horizon. So I waited 🙂 And now I’m giving both of them to this grand baby – I guess if they have more children, they’ll have to figure out which kid gets which quilt! This first photo is the wedding quilt.

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And below are the two baby quilts made from the fabric scraps generated from the wedding quilt. Both have cotton batting and flannel backing from my local shop The Stitchery.

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This one has the cutest woodland critters fabric. My daughter and I were driving from Idaho to Colorado after she got married, and stopped over in Moab, Utah to hike in Arches National Park. As I always do when traveling, I googled local quilt shops and lo and behold there was a shop near the Park, called It’s Sew Moab. We saw this pattern and fabric there, and decided to go ahead and buy it – but as with the wedding scraps, I waited until she was expecting to actually make the quilt. They chose woodland animals and roughly these fall kind of colors for their nursery, so this quilt is perfect!

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I love these little bunnies! This quilt is from an Elizabeth Hartman pattern that I got from my Quilty Box subscription. She does a super job with her patterns, and gives you plenty of tips to stay organized with all the little pieces. This is not paper pieced, and she makes it easy.

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These giraffes just make me smile! This is a pattern from a Canadian designer at Sew Fresh Quilts. It is also not paper pieced and went together quickly. Perfect flannel backing, which I found at a quilt shop in Wytheville, VA, called Sew What Fabrics. I think maybe this one is my favorite so far.

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For now, this is the last one. I have at least this many more tops made, they are waiting in line to get to get on my long arm frame. This one is fun just because of the bright colors. Very simple piecing using a jelly roll, so a great one if you are working with a time crunch. Also with flannel backing and cotton batting.

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You can see how I label my quilts – I don’t do well with hand sewing, so I make my labels into triangles and sew them directly into the binding which leaves no raw edge to have to hand tack down. I embroider them myself with my Blue Beagle logo and the year, and for me this is the perfect solution!

So that was the first six baby quilts – stay tuned for more… Many thanks for reading! Happy quilting!