Baby Bunting - Newborn Girl

Since I've finished all my gift wrapping and cookie making for the holidays, I was able to finish this bunting today. It also helps that work is soooooo slow and I could work on it during the day.

I began this project a month ago. I love working with flannel but wanted to make something other than a quilt. Many visits to the pattern department at Joann's later I found a very cute pattern (McCall's- M5963). It is an "easy" pattern too which made it even that more attractive. The pattern called for fleece but I thought it would work well in flannel too and it did. I changed the zipper to velcro tabs for a different look. It is a newborn size.

Final Quilt of the year

This is the final quilt I will sew this year. I know there are three weeks left but I'm busy wrapping gifts and ready to try sewing some baby clothes to change things up a bit.

I really didn't know how many baby quilts I had made this year until I counted them up and I've made eleven! My goal was to make one a month and I came pretty close to that. It was great fun and good for me to have something creative to do so I won't watch too much TV or otherwise get bored. Work has been quite slow this year and the blessing of that is I've had more time and energy to do creative things.

TINY LADYBUG BABY QUILT

Selecting the fabric is one of the highlights of sewing a quilt. When I selected the fabric for this quilt I was very excited about the combination of fabrics I chose until I cut out all the squares and lay them out together on the floor. I was disappointed at how it looked at first, thinking this wasn't going to be one of my favorites.

But I went ahead with it and once the first border was added it began to take shape and once it was finished I discovered that it is my favorite quilt so far. That's usually how I feel about each quilt when I'm finished but this one really is my favorite. I think because the colors just seem like what a new born baby would like.

This quilt is a variation of the previous quilt. I made it more square with more borders and of course the new binding.

Butterflies & Flowers Baby Quilt

I found a very cute baby quilt on line which was asymetrical. I liked the look and decided to try one of my own since all the others I have made have been symetrical. It was fun to design and more interesting to sew and quilt.

I also bound the edges with binding instead of using the sandwich style. I had been resisting this until I found a tutorial online which demonstrated making a binding by using a facing. It was very simple to do and I love the look of it. Now I enjoy all the steps required to make a small quilt. I will use this method on all future quilts. The tutorial for the facing binding is: http://barnyardchatter.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/facings-an-alternative-to-traditional-bindings/.

Sun & Moon Baby Quilt

While I was making this quilt I was so pleased with how the fabric squares looked next to each other but in looking back on it now in the photo I'm thinking, "oh, I don't really like the yellow there, and not all of the squares lay flat after the machine quilting."
I enjoyed the process of making the quilt more than the outcome, and I learned what I'd do next time to improve. I think that's what creating is all about for me. I love the process of making the quilt and while in the process I'm feeling like 'this is the prettiest one yet". Then on to the next one and that becomes the fairest one of all.

After completing this quilt I realized in order to have the top layer lay flat I would need to machine quilt the pieces together first and then bind the edges. This was something I had been avoiding because of needing to cut edge strips on the bias and miter the corners. It's the traditional way to finish a quilt but I balked at it. I found a solution to this online which I will apply to my next quilt.