Baby quilt - Part One

As my niece is now old enough to have a proper quilt (1 year old), and I wanted a project, I decided to make a baby quilt. I started off with a relatively simple idea - just a chessboard style pattern. I found an easy baby quilt pattern online and it was basically sewing 5" (15cm) squares together into a patchwork. I made it using 8 x 6 of the 5" squares.

TOOLS YOU WILL NEED

Fabric shears/rotary cutter

Self-heal mat

Sewing machine

Unpicker

Box of pins

Ironing board or thick wool to protect your table surface

Iron

MATERIALS

Thread

Soft fleece/throw (90cm x 120cm)

100% polyester wadding (90cm x 120cm)

24 x 5" (15cm) fabric squares in Colour A (you can also buy these ready-made online)

24 x 5" (15cm) fabric squares in Colour B (you can also buy these ready-made online)

LET'S GET QUILTING!

This is my 5" x 5" square pattern. I just cut out 48 squares (in total) from two different rolls of fabric, but you can use pre-cut squares if you find that easier. There are lots of lovely squares in different patterns on Amazon and at any good haberdasher's (which is often cheaper)

N.B. Remember that if you have a specific measurement to adhere to that you'll need a seam allowance. 1.5cm is usually what people use. I just went with the second groove on my sewing machine for this one as all of the squares are the same size.

I have used lovely John Lewis materials which I had made into a skirt but didn't want anymore. The materials are all natural fibres (linen and cotton) which, I have made sure, can be washed at 30 degrees. N.B. I washed the fabric before I made the skirt just in case. Some materials shrink so I like to check before I put all that effort into it!

I pinned the pattern to my fabric and cut it out with my mom's Finkars fabric shears. They're lovely to use! I have since seen a tutorial about Rotary Cutters, though, and I'm completely converted! Come on Amazon, I want to play with the rotary cutter I ordered! 

Lay down your 5" squares as 6 rows of 8. I placed them in order to see how they will look when it's finished. Make sure your pattern matches - I didn't want any random upside down pigs in my quilt...

If you're using random scrap fabric, make sure that you unpick any unwanted strands of sewing first, like the zigzag stitch you can see here.

I have put 2 fabric squares with their right sides (the side you want showing) together. I have pinned them together and am sewing with the right edge of the fabric on the second groove of my sewing machine. I am sewing a straight line with a centre needle.

TIP: If you want you could draw a line where you want to sew (to make sure your seam allowance is correct). Make sure the pins don't get caught on your needle or sewing machine foot!

Once you've done your first seam, attach the next fabric square with the right side facing one of the squares you have just sewn. To begin with, sew your 8 squares together in a row. You'll want to repeat this 3 times.

Two lines should have colours in this order...
ABABABAB

Two lines should have colours in this order
BABABABA

Here's my first line of squares! Yay! I felt very satisfied at this point.

I haven't taken the pins out of the bottom line so, in reality, the two lines should match up exactly.

In the end, you should have 6 rows of 8 squares.

TEA BREAK!

Sit down, put your feet up, rehydrate, show off your fancy Cath Kidston china for once and stretch your back. (I recommend having a good chair and a nice high table for quilting as I did most of it on my coffee table - ouch. I have since relocated to what is now my craft room)

Iron your seams! It makes everything flat and easy to work with.

Another picture of some lovely flat seams - wow my photographer really likes flat seams!

Pin your strip of 8 squares (in colours ABABABAB) to your strip of 8 squares (in colours BABABABA).

Pin the vertical seams together so they match.

TIP: Make sure you pin the rows together and flip the right side over so you can check it will match before sewing. You could run a bit of tacking thread along it if that helps (no upside down pigs for me). Unpicking sucks, checking is so worth it!

Simply sew a straight line (centre needle) down the whole of the horizontal row so that you get 16 x 2 squares all attached like this.

ABABABAB
BABABABA

Repeat this with the other two rows, then iron those beautiful seams!

I promise I'm not OCD but I was very excited by 4am (having got through the whole first series of The Vampire Diaries and having finished the main part of my quilt!) so there was more seam ironing to make it pretty. 





**The story of why the above picture is only 4 x 5 squares - The next day my mom promptly said, "hmm I don't think it's big enough! Have you measured her cot?" Luckily I still had loads of material (the skirt I made was really long) so I just enlarged the blanket with extra rows so it is, which is what you're doing! (8 squares x 6 squares).**

This is what your finished patchwork should look like! 8 x 6 beautifully patched 5"squares









**Great thing about quilting - You can always whack on another row and it barely makes a difference as long as the squares are the same size and the seams are matched well! Yay quilting!

I bought a lilac fleece throw from Primark £2.30 (but you can use anything you'd like as long as it washes at 30 degrees) which I have cut to the same size as the patchwork. Cut a roll of polyester wadding to the same size as the patchwork and fleece. The wadding goes between the patchwork and the fleece.





**NEXT TIME ON BABY QUILTING**

Keep a look-out for my next post when I will be finishing quilting this project!

I'm just waiting on my polyester wadding to come in the post so that I can put it between the patchwork and my lilac fleece throw, then I can sew it quilt-style!