I’ve been working on a quilt the last two weeks. I’m not a quilter but I do love playing with color. I made this as a gift for a soon to be new mom. This quilt is larger than the suggested crib size. I know this new baby’s baby cousin will be spending time visiting and I wanted it large enough for both babies to lay on and play on. I also wanted it thick enough to be comfortable if laid on a wood floor.
The pattern inspiration came from a scrap quilt I saw on Crazy Mom Quilts. The inspiration quilt was made from 3″ x 6″ scraps (plus seam allowance). I don’t believe there were any repeating blocks. Because of the size I wanted I made my blocks, 3″ x 8″, 3″ x 6″ and 3″ x 4″. I had a few coordinating fat quarters already which is where most of my blocks came from, raided my scarp box for a few blocks and bought a couple more fat quarters to complete.
The new mom’s favorite colors are green and blue so I purchased green for the binding and a blue print backing which doesn’t coordinate too well but that was on purpose. I wanted her to be able to use either side and, depending on her mood, she could choose loud or not so loud.
The cutting and piecing went really fast. I used two layers of cotton batting for extra padding (I purchased a roll of twin size batting). I tied the quilt with embroidery floss. For the binding I cut five strips 2 1/4″ wide across the fabric, sewed them together into one long strip, then cut the strip the width of the quilt plus 1″ twice, and the length plus 1″ twice. I did not make bias binding like I had thought I would. I read I could just cut on the grain and so I did, as that is easiest. I folded the binding in half, sewed it onto the front of the quilt at the edges by machine, folded it over the raw edge to the back and hand stitched it down. The biding is folded in half for double thickness around the edges where it will get the most wear.
The quilt was fun to make. However, as with all quilt projects I did, I always think it’s sorta’ funny to take a large piece of fabric and cut it up into small pieces and then sew it back together to make a large piece of flat fabric. This is, I guess, what makes scrap quilts more of a challenge, more impressive and probably more exciting to make because you really are making something from almost nothing.