Work, Home and Family: Homemade Christmas Gift #2: A Baby Quilt

A gender-neutral baby quilt!

We have a dear friend who is expecting her third baby immediately after Christmas.  I typically do not give Christmas gifts to friends, apart from occasional baked goods (cookies, bread, and the like) but, her older children are school age and she donated all her baby things a couple of years ago.  I had all the materials in my sewing stash so, I made a small quilt for the baby.  My friends are not finding out the gender of the baby before the baby is born, so it is a deliberately gender neutral quilt.  You can make this in your choice of colors for either gender, gender neutral or whatever pattern or theme you like.

Materials:
* Four rectangles of fabric in your desired color(s) - mine are 12" x 8 inches.  I chose  one each of pink, yellow, green and blue.
* A piece of fleece in coordinating colors for baking (large enough to cover the back of the sewn-together squares).  I chose a plaid in white, blue, pink and green. 
* Coordinating Yarn for tying the quilt.  I chose variegated pink-white-yellow.
* Quilt/Blanket Binding (your could self-bind if you like with the fabric or make your own binding). I chose a pale green satin finish blanket binding. 
* Thread for sewing.
* Sewing machine.

This was a great way to use up scraps from another project or two. 

I started by sewing the rectangles of fabric into a larger rectangle.  Then I tied the top to the fleece using 8 inch long piece of yarn. I tied the yarn into a bow with a double knot and then trimmed the ends so they are even in length.

Last, I sewed the blanket binding around the edge.  This was the first time I ever used blanket binding and it was an adjustment for me!  If you typically self-bind or make matching quilt binding, you may do that instead. 

All total, this took about 2 1/2 hours to make from start to finish.
Cost to me: $0  since I already had all the items.  Your cost will vary depending on the fabric and fleece you purchase.

This could also be a nice lap quilt with a different choice of fabric. 

What did you make for Christmas this week?

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