Making Baby Quilts

You'll notice on my sidebar I have a section called "Quilt-alongs - My Best Motivator".  For the most part, this works for me to stay on track with a project.  I have either finished or am very close to finish every one of those shown - but until today, I have never participated in Michelle's "Let's Make Baby Quilts"!

 

Lucky for me, her 'rules' are pretty relaxed - all I have to do is write a post (or share an old one) about something related to baby quilts.  Since my daughters and their friends are currently in the baby-making stage and my friends are becoming grammas, it doesn't hurt for me to have stash of finished quilts on hand.  I'm going to start by sharing one I made last summer,

 

 

for this little cutie! 

 

Brayden is the grandson of one of my best friends, with a wonderful story of how he came to be in her life.  His mother was given up for adoption by my friend (in the days of closed adoptions), and after several years of searching they reconnected, in time for my friend to be at her daughter's wedding and ultimately become Gramma! 

 

The design is my own, made from the leftovers of this:

 

 

and this:

 

 

 

Made from fat 1/8's, charm squares and a layer cake.  Baby quilts are a great way to use up the scraps.

 

 

 

Because of the way this quilt is constructed (pattern at the bottom of Melissa's Happy Quilting page here), I was left with a bunch of half-triangles that I could make into half-square triangles (HST) that were 5". 

 

 

 

I had enough to make 4 pinwheel blocks, measuring 9 1/2" square.  I cut my remaining layer cake pieces in half, so I had a rectangle that measured 5" x 10".  I started my design by placing the large pinwheels on my design wall, then filling in the spaces with the rectangles, and finally finishing with leftover charm squares, a couple of HSTs, and finally the smaller rectangles.

 

 

I quilted it with stitch-in-the-ditch quilting because I only had two days to make this from start to finish.  I backed it with Minkee, and turned it to the front for a simple binding.  It is plenty warm and about 40" square, perfect for a little boy who is living in the North-West Territories (akin to living in central Alaska!).

 

One more gratuitous baby shot: