Thursday, March 24, 2011

Ladybug Baby Quilt


Hey guys!  It’s Brittani!  I want to show you a quilt I did last week.  My husband’s cousin had a baby in February.  We wanted to do the baby shower the month after the baby was born since Shae lives 2 hours away, so we would be able to see the baby at the shower.  I was thinking about what I wanted to get Shae for a shower gift and decided to make a quilt that matched her nursery theme. 
Shae decorated her nursery with a theme of ladybugs and sunflowers.  I set off to the fabric store to find something that went along those lines.  I found ladybug fabric that was yellow and paired it with red with white polka dots, black, and yellow fabric.   


When I got home I started planning my design on paper.  After I measured and cut the fabric, I laid it out on the floor to see how the design looked.  This is an important step because the design you originally draw may look completely different on paper than in fabric.  I redesigned, and recut according to the new design. 
 I began machine piecing the individual blocks and attached the white borders.  I decided to machine quilt the baby blanket because it was little enough that I could do it on my machine and it would be a lot faster and less expensive than having someone else do it for me.  I just quilted straight lines along the seams of the blocks.  When I got to the binding, I chose to reuse the red and white polka dot fabric to make it stand out.  I learned a lot when working on this quilt.  I tried to do rounded edges, but this was very difficult because the fabric was not very stretchy.  All in all, the quilt came out pretty good and was a great gift for a baby shower.   I might try a rag baby quilt next time!
 This is the first quilt I have done completely on my own.  I worked on a quilt with my grandma with Razorback fabric, but we sent it to a lady to machine quilt it.  I already have another quilt project ready to start.  I will post that sometime later this year after I finish.  It will be a much bigger quilt using a Disappearing Nine Patch pattern.
I think she liked it!
Michael's cousin, Shae displaying the quilt.


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