Disappearing Nine Patch Baby Quilt

 Today I'm happy to share with you the bright quilt I made for my newest nephew. Now at the time I picked out fabric I didn't know if I was getting a niece or nephew, and my sister-in-law just asked for bright colors. This wasn't what I intended on getting when I left for the fabric store, but if you know me it's not a big surprise I came home with something completely different, LOL. I picked out some bright colors with a pop of animal print to coordinate with the zoo animals on the backing fabric.

I used the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern for the top. It's an easy pattern I found a while back on one of my favorite sewing blogs, Cluck Cluck Sew. The gist of the pattern is to make a basic nine patch out of 5-inch squares, then cut the nine patch into fourths, and piece the resulting blocks together to make the quilt top.



For this quilt I made five nine patches. Then I cut into fourths for the "disappearing" effect and stitched together four across and five down. I also added a solid border with orange circles fabric around the finished nine patches and then a border of rectangles outside that. Next up was to make a nice "quilt sandwich" with the top, batting, and bottom in preparation to quilt everything together. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but I used orange thread to quilt inside and outside the border of each nine patch and the border pieces.

Then I grabbed my bias tape maker to make my own bias out of the orange circles fabric to give a nice coordinating finished look for the binding. If you've never made your own bias, all it takes is a bias tape maker (about $5), your fabric, and an iron. I also like to use a starch spray (Mary Ellen's Best Press is my favorite) for a better result after ironing. Then you have a bias tape that perfectly matches your quilt -- yay!!




My nephew is four months old now and already has gotten lots of use out of his blanket. I hear he loves it for tummy time and playing, and also loves looking at the bright colors!!

Online Quilt Block Sewing Bee

I just wanted to take a minute to say how excited I am about a quilt that a fellow quilt block bee-er finished recently. Linda made a purple and pink "I Spy" quilt for her granddaughter. Isn't it lovely?!

My "Care Bear" block is second row, first block. :O)

At Linda's Chirp blog you can find a tutorial of her modified quilt-as-you-go method and more pictures of her beautiful quilt. Here's what Linda said about using this method:

The point of this technique is that with a full size backing, I could work on a section of quilting at a time without manipulating three heavy, bulky layers all the time, and there are no awkward joins that have to be covered, hand-stitched, or disguised in any way. No shoulder pain, no sewing machine getting pushed around on the table!

After reading her tutorial, it's something I definitely want to try out!!

In case you are wondering, an online quilt block bee is where sewers from all over the world come together and make blocks for each other. The bee I recently was part of is housed at Flickr. This particular group was a "mini bee" with six hive members and two months to complete the blocks. It's a fun way to discover and try new color combinations and see what other people have going on in their sewing rooms. Online bees come in all shapes and sizes -- it's all about finding one that fits your mood!!

At the beginning of the bee each person tells what particular colors or patterns they would like to have in their block. Then each sewer makes one block for each fellow hive member in the colors they requested, but uses the same pattern for each block. You mail your block to the right person and blocks come in the mail to you. Happy mail for once. :O)

I ended up making six unique blocks for my bee hive:

Here's the center of my Care Bear-themed pink and purple block for the I Spy quilt:

The goal in the end is to get enough quilt blocks from bees to make your own quilt. I love the idea of having a quilt full of blocks made just for me by fellow sewers all over the world!!

Baby Blankets 3 Ways {#2}

Here's the second blanket of three for the newest addition to our neighborhood. The top is a "race" or "jelly roll 1600" type of design. Here's some more about those along with pictures of other beautiful full-size race quilts.

I was lucky enough to find a jelly roll that used the same colors from baby's room. The parents wanted baby's gender to be a surprise, so they decorated the nursery in pretty muted blues, greens and grays. It's really a stunning room and a great concept for a gender-neutral color scheme!!

To make this blanket I used one half of a jelly roll (20 strips), backing fabric and matching fabric for the binding. Its finished size is 31" x 41".

First I sewed together all the strips with a diagonal seam. To do this you lay two strips together, right sides facing, in what I fancily like to call an "upside down L" (LOL). Then you sew a straight diagonal line from corner to corner, and when you open it up you have nice diagonal line. Do this over and over, joining all the strips together into one big strip.

Sew the strips together with a diagonal line.

When finished it will look like this, with a diagonal seam.

Sew all the strips together and you'll get a nice pile of one long strip. :O)

After you have one long strip, find the midpoint, move up a little and cut so that you now have two long strips. You don't want to cut it exactly in half or the diagonals will line up and that's not what you want. Now sew these two strips together. Again, find the midpoint and cut. Repeat this process until you have your blanket top. Easy peasy. Time consuming, yes, but also easy.

After cutting and sewing the strip together once, then cutting in half and getting ready to sew together again.

The finished top with all the pieces sewn together.

Next I made bias tape for the binding that was from the same fabric as the backing. If you have never done this, it's easy and much more economical than purchasing ready-made bias tape. Plus you know you have a finished binding that matches just right. Bias tape makers come in a variety of sizes. To make the bias tape, simply cut your fabric to the right width and length, run it through the bias tape maker tool and press with an iron and you're done. I also like to spray with starch before ironing so the binding folds stay neat and clean. Mary Ellen's Best Press starch spray in lavendar is my favorite!!

Making the bias tape for binding is easy!!

My 1" finished bias tape (and my handy dandy bias tape maker).

Next I pinned together the top and bottom pieces of fabric, wrong sides together, and stitched-in-the-ditch up every other row of strips. This gives a nice quilted look and also helps the blanket hold together. There is not any batting in the middle -- you certainly could do this if you wanted. But for this blanket I chose to keep it simple. I personally like blankets that are not too thick -- I find they are great for simple cover-ups when a thick blanket would just be too much, are easy to transport and great for baby to sit on and play.

The last step was to put on the binding, and I used a mitered corner (if you need help with this, do a quick search on YouTube for some great tutorials).

Binding with mitered corners; top and bottom of blanket.

Back of blanket.

This blanket is fairly easy to put together and just requires a little time to get done. The design makes a lot of impact for minimal effort compared to other piecing techniques and patterns. Add some matching burp cloths or other baby essentials and you have yourself a great shower gift!!

A pretty blanket ready for a beautiful new baby!!

So now you've seen Blanket #1 and #2 -- next week will finish this neighborhood Baby Blanket triparte!! But no worries -- if you like baby blankets there are more to come. :O)