BABY QUILT

I am happy to finally find a good use of that fishy material in the centre which has been in my stash for a while now..

My mum is a self-taught tailor and dress-maker. She has the special gift of looking at a dress that she liked on the street and later creating an exact replica of that dress at home. Being a dress-maker and tailor, she always have ample supply of scraps, which she would later convert to blankets, bedspreads, pillows and all kind of patchwork! 

Unfortunately, I left home early to live at a boarding school and later overseas and didn't make a point to learn from her, when I had a chance. Now that her eyesight is failing and I am living thousands of miles from her, I do not foresee that precious experience will happen. But, I am thankful that she has passed that creative gene down to me, if I may say so!

A friend recently gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy. I could go the shop and buy something as a gift, but where is the fun in it. So, I decided to give a try at creating a small baby blanket using the scraps that I have.

As this is my first attempt at quilting, I wanted a simple pattern that would not leave me with a half-finished quilt. This free pattern which I discovered via Quilt Taffy was perfect for my project.

As I am not equipped with a rotary cutter or the special equipments required for making a quilt, all the pieces are  cut with my faithful scissors with the help of a cardboard template for the small squares.

I was very careful with the measurement when cutting and sewing to make sure that all pieces are joined perfectly. All seams are 1/4".

The lining was an old flannel sheet and the backing is a soft purple fleece, which in my opinion is suitable for a baby blanket. The pieces are a combination of an old dress, curtain, scraps and a flat sheet. The backing fleece, blue polka dot and stripe material was bought at $1 a meter.

The fancy quilting techniques still daunt me, so I opted to topstich along the seam lines instead. Apart from a slight pucker at some places, it works well this time.

The binding was done with wonderful help from this Heather Bailey' tutorial, which was brilliant. I have to say that there is still a LAAARGEEE room for improvement from yours truly, especially the corners.

There's a 10 year old behind that quilt. She loves it so much that she's asking one for herself!

As it goes with working with recycled materials, the fabrics are soaked and washed thoroughly before I started quilting and gave it another  wash after I have finished it.