Dolores's Baby Quilt!

This is the fourth baby's floor quilt I've made now, and it felt pretty surreal making one for a baby that I was going to be giving birth to! It would be a bit embarrassing if I didn't make one for Lola, wouldn't it?! Considering I went to the trouble of making the baby and all. 

It might not surprise you to find this one has a nautical theme! The fabrics have a variety of sources: a gift from a friend, a couple of old men's shirts, the scrap basket at Sew Over It and even some left overs from some sleeping shorts my mum made my dad! 

I made this in the exact same way as the others and at the same time as making Theo's quilt as it made sense to buy the wadding and backing fleece for both at the same time. I actually started cutting out the squares for the patchwork before we knew if the baby was going to be a boy or girl, but as I've mentioned before, I'm not a massive fan of gender-specific colours for babies/children anyway so something more unisex suited us better anyhow. 

We've been using it fairly regularly to place her on her belly for 'tummy time' to help her to start developing her neck muscles and head control. Hopefully it's also developing a fixation for anchors and boats as well! 

Theo's Baby Quilt!

First there was Surayya's. Then there was Samuel's. Now comes the hat-trick! You remember my mate Anna for whom I made a couple of maternity garments recently? Well she had her little baby!!!! A little boy called Theo who, if the photo on Facebook is to believed, is CUTE! Sadly, Theo and his folks live in Madrid so it's going to be a while until I get to meet that little chap in the flesh, by which point I'll have my own new little person for Theo to hang with.

I actually finished this quilt back in May to take with me when we went to Madrid to visit. Anna and her husband Marcus chose not to find out the gender of their baby before the birth, so I had to make it gender-neutral. I also wanted to give this one a fairly fun, contemporary look so I kept that in mind when hunting out fabric scraps to make it from.

Technique-wise, it's made in more or less EXACTLY the same way as the previous two. If it ain't broke... It's backed with red fleece which, along with the wadding, were the only bits that I needed to actually buy. The patchwork fabric pieces came from a combination of my own fabric stash and the scraps hamper at Sew Over It. I think the only thing I did differently with the construction of this quilt is that I hand-stitched the second edge of the binding rather than using my sewing machine as I did with the previous two. This red bias binding is narrower than the other two's self-made binding so I decided it would be less of a headache to stitch it down by hand. I'm actually really pleased with how neat I was able to stitch it.

So, you may be wondering, is there a fourth quilt in the pipeline....?!

Samuel's Baby Quilt!

Honestly, I never thought this blog would be the kind to feature regular baby quilt projects, but if two can be considered 'regular', then I'm going to need to accept that maybe this is that type of blog! Maybe I should make a few more cocktail dresses and get drunk in them to balance things out! Anyways, as long as my crew keep pumping out those little 'uns, Auntie Zo will be whipping up quilts to put them on/over them, rest assured.

This second quilting endeavour belongs to baby Samuel, who sadly I have not yet had the privaledge of meeting as he resides in Essex, and I'm currently too skint to afford the train fare. But in the meantime I hope the love and special thoughts that got infused into this quilt as I sewed it are making themselves felt.

After good reviews from my first quilt attempt for baby Surayya, I decided to stick to the same dimensions and construction method. I even used the same teal sateen as the main solid tone in the patchwork. The colour scheme for this quilt was meant to be colours of the sea (blues, greens, teals, turquoises) but it ended up too intense with too many different patterns, so I narrowed the selection of fabrics and colours to tone the whole thing down a touch. A lot of the squares in this quilt are scraps from men's shirts, which are a perfect weight and softness for a baby patchwork affair. In fact, I was tempted to make the whole thing out of old shirts, but I feared that would look too formal and adult. I hope I've struck a decent balance in the end.

My favourite part of this quilt is the large blue and white check because those scraps came from the leftovers of this shirt I made for Pat (AKA, Mr 'So, Zo...'). I like how the scale of that check looks giant when contrasted against the smaller scaled checks I also used.

The main difference between this quilt and the first, aside from the fabrics used, is that I got this one finished before Samuel was born and was able to give it to his mum at her baby shower, whereas the first quilt had to be produced after the baby shower as it was made from fabrics brought by the baby shower attendees. Under what circumstances my third baby quilt attempt will be produced is as yet unknown!

Surayya's Baby Quilt!

Oops, I forgot to share with a sewing project that I'll think you'll agree is something of a deviation from my normal stitchery pokery. This is a quilty thing I completed a few weeks ago for my mate's gorgeous new little daughter, Surayya Rana.

The little lady in question is also the intended wearer of the baby dress I made a while back for the baby shower, way back before everyone was even positive she was going to be a she! You can see some scraps from that dress fabric as my contribution to the fabric medley. At that baby shower, I asked all the ladies in attendance to bring a piece of fabric with them. Those pieces of fabric were the material used to create this quilt (along with the solid teal colour I introduced in an attempt to prevent Surayya getting a headache when she spends under or on it!).

Not having ever made a quilt before, I wasn't massively sure how to approach it. The patchwork part was time consuming but easy enough. I decided not to attempt to properly quilt it because if I did so, I'm pretty sure she would be school-age before I got it finished! So I bought some brushed cotton for the backing and some wadding and made some self-bias from the remains of the teal sateen. Stitching the layers together without missing and bits or getting and pleats or tucks was a bit of a nightmare, but the whole thing was sooooo worth it. I really hope it's something she'll use and love, and I know it's been apprciated by her parents, so I'm one happy Auntie Zo!