Baby Quilts and Bedding

My latest projects have all been baby related.  My youngest daughter found out she was pregnant with twins back in December.  This was her third attempt at invitro so when we got the news we were more than happy.  

Pregnant with twins

Of course the grandma in me immediately kicked in and I started to design baby crib bedding and quilts.  I was thoroughly convinced that one of the twins was a girl so I was making and designing lots of girl stuff only to find out she was having twin boys.   Around this same time 2 of her cousins announced they were pregnant as well as one of my co-workers. A few months later another daughter announced she was pregnant so my designing and sewing has been going non-stop for about 6 months.   Her cousins and my co-worker are having boys.  My daughter JaNae found out she is having a girl. Designing for girls is so much easier because there are more accessories to make it fun.  It seems more difficult to find fabrics that are geared to boy designs that can be used to grow with the child and are not too babyish. 

I enjoy the fabric lines put out by Bonnie and Camille at Moda.  The one I used for most of the boy bedding and quilts was from the line Happy Go Lucky.  Most of my favorite quilt projects have come from fabric lines designed by Bonnie and Camille.

One of my favorite things to make and give as a gift is the infant car seat covers.  I designed these patterns and am currently working at publishing the patterns.  All of my Grand-kids get one as well as a baby quilt made by me. Most of these quilts are all original designs.  The other thing I have been doing is designing the crib bedding and sewing it.   About 4 years ago my oldest daughter showed me the fabric she wanted for her nursery for her baby girl that was on the way.  She found the fabric through a company called Carousel Designs.  I was able to design and purchase the fabric through this company.  I used this company again to design the bedding for the twins and my co-workers baby.  I really like the quality of the fabric from Carousel Designs.  They have a good selection and the fabric is wider than the quilt fabrics on bolts from the quilt shops.  I have used the fabrics from Carousel Designs to back many of the quilts recently because I don’t have to put any or as many seams in the backing of the quilt.  The prices of the fabric have also been reasonable. 

I will show my designs of the quilts and bedding and infant covers and tell what pattern I designed and used to create them and the fabric color or line of fabric. 

I made 8 car seat covers at the same time.  I used the pattern Brecklyns Blocks and I made two of each coloring.  The teal and gray and the pink and red coloring came from fabric I purchased some time ago.  This fabric line was called Vintage Modern and was designed by Bonnie and Camille for Moda.  I think this fabric line Vintage Modern has been my all-time favorite fabric line.  The other covers were made from the fabric line Happy Go Lucky also by Bonnie and Camille.  One of the reasons I made several out of the same pattern but with different fabrics is to show how different quilts can look using the same pattern but with different colors of fabric.  Also this quilt pattern lends itself to either a girl or a boy by simply changing the fabric.  This is a very good gender neutral pattern for quilts for a childs room. 

                                               

For the twins baby blankets I used the same fabric line but different colors.  These quilts were made from the Happy Go Lucky fabric and the quilt pattern I chose was one I designed called Freestyle Hailee.  This is another gender neutral pattern.

These are the bedding designs I have done on Carousel Designs web site.  I made all three of the boy quilts and the crib bedding.  My Daughter JaNae says she is having a girl so I will be doing something like the pink design.  This is a great web site and I really like the fabric, so check it out.




The quilt for Emily’s Baby Boy I designed but have not named the pattern.  I used the Happy Go Lucky fabric.  Emily designed the Crib bedding at Carousel Designs and based on the colors she chose then I chose fabrics for the quilt that would coordinate with the bedding.

Baby Burp Cloths

The holidays are always crazy and I have been too busy creating and not posting.  I will attempt to post some of the fun things I have been working on. 

I have an embroidery/sewing machine.  I have enjoyed embroidering many different projects.  I have seen some really cute burp cloths made from cloth baby diapers.  I have been told the moms love these since they are very absorbent.  With twin grandsons on the way and one other grand baby on the way I thought this would be a good time to whip some of these out. 

I was also looking for a cute sewing project that my older granddaughters could sew and I figured this would be the perfect project.  We started one Saturday morning and they enjoyed it so much that they did not stop until late in the afternoon when I finally had to take them back home. 

I bought a pack of diapers from Wal-mart.  There were 10 diapers in a pack for about 13$.  I went to Etsy to look for and purchase some cute applique embroidery designs.  These patterns ranged in price from $1.50-$3.50 and the digital patterns downloaded immediately to my email.  It doesn't take very much fabric for the embroidery or the fabric border, I actually used scraps from other projects.  I like to use large ric rac so I had previously purchased some ric rac that matched the fabrics I was using.  Ribbon
is also a nice edge to trim it with.

To keep it soft I chose to use flannel for the borders but I did use some quilting fabrics for the embroidery designs. I first cut 2 strips of fabric for the borders.  These strips will be 3” wide and 1” longer than the width of the end of the diaper. I then sewed ric rac to one edge of each strip.  I folded this over and pressed it and then pressed the opposite side with ¼” seam.  I then centered the strip and began pinning it down and pinned the ends under to fit the width of the bib.  The diapers tend to be a little stretchy and uneven so this is where pinning is important so that the bottom edge matches up exactly and evens it out.  Once pinned, I then sewed about an 1/8” seam all the way around this strip to attach it to the diaper. 

My granddaughters that sewed are ages 12 and 9.  This was a good project because one could be sewing their burp cloth while the other was pinning.  It taught them how to sew a straight line and the importance of pinning and matching edges.  While they were sewing I would take what they had finished and then embroider the design on.  They were so excited to make these and can’t wait to give them to their new cousins. 

One thing I would recommend is to put the embroidery design on first so that there is less bulk in the hoop.  Just make sure to leave room for the border.