A handmade baby quilt is the perfect way to welcome a new baby into the family. My youngest sister just had her third baby and I was excited to have another opportunity to make a baby quilt to give as a gift to the new little one.
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I got started making this quilt before she had the baby but the only thing we didn't know was the baby's gender so I had to make it gender neutral.
Of course before I settled on the quilt block pattern I wanted to use I scoured my favorite place for inspiration - Pinterest! Don't forget to follow me on Pinterest to see all of my other inspiring pins!
Here are the quilts I found on Pinterest I was considering making for this baby quilt I wanted to share with you. I really wanted to make a gender neutral quilt that had little bits or blocks of color, which all of these quilts have.
Baby Quilt Inspiration From Pinterest
Stacked Coins Pattern (via: sew-handmade.blogspot.com)
Charm Pack Quilt (via: Sew Me)
I love the pops of color each quilt offers and the texture the quilting brings out too. It was a tough decision but in the end I went with the Improv Spinners and Hourglass!
Easy DIY Improv Spinners & Hourglass Baby Quilt
As someone who loves sewing and quilting I have an overflowing and growing fabric scrap bin and I knew this quilt would help me use up some of these scraps of fabric that I already have on hand.
What I discovered while using the fabric from my scrap bin was the small bits of leftover fabric I used for this baby quilt were from the fabric I had used when making two baby quilts for my sister's first two kids. I love how each child's quilt has some of the same fabric bits in them. It kind of ties them all together - like a little sibling quilt family!
I followed the instructions for the improv spinners and hourglass block pattern from the Stash Bee and I found her tutorial to be super easy and fun and I totally recommend it if you want to give this quilt block a try!
The biggest tip, which the tutorial mentions is to make sure you sew your spinner fabric (the colorful long piece) to the same side of your base fabric on each square of the base fabric. This ensures that each spinner comes together and you don't have a random spinner blade facing the wrong way!
I found that the most handy sewing tools, besides a sewing machine, to have on hand when making this quilt is a rotary cutter, self healing cutting mat and a straight edge like a quilting ruler (I couldn't find mine!!) or a wood ruler. There will be a ton of trimming for each block and it went really fast using a rotary cutter! I also used my iron and ironing board a lot to iron down the spinners and hourglasses as I made the blocks.
For my base squares I used three different neutral color fabrics - white, oatmeal and light gray cut into 5" squares. The tutorial from Stash bee recommends using four but I didn't have an extra neutral color on hand. I also made extra white squares so that each quilt block of four squares had two whites that I sewed diagonal to each other.
While making each square I did not make each spinner blade or hourglass triangle the same size. I kind of eye-balled it depending on the print fabric I was using. I wanted that "wonky" look for each of the spinners and hourglasses.
After I was done sewing the long spinner side an the small hourglass sides onto the base squares, I sewed four completed squares together into one full quilt block making sure the spinners and hourglasses all had mismatched fabric touching each other. Then I laid out all the completed blocks on my floor and placed them into the pattern I wanted for the final quilt.
I had to do a lot of rearranging to get it just right but once I was satisfied with the placement of the blocks I began sewing the blocks together. I ended up with 5 full blocks across by 5 blocks down.
After the blocks were done and all sewn together, I decided last minute to add some white sashing all around the border of the quilt sides. I wanted to make sure my binding stood out from the quilt blocks and the only way I could do this was to use plain white sashing.
The back of my quilt is a print I found in a gender neutral mustard yellow color with white geometric lines that form mini crosses all over. I love the subtle cross theme because this is a child I will be praying for regularly and I like knowing that he or she will be covered in little crosses when they are sleeping. Sweet dreams baby!
Because there are lots of colorful spinners and hourglasses all over the quilt I wanted to make sure the quilting didn't distract from the design so I decided to quilt just a few diagonal lines through the squares and then I also quilted in the ditch around the perimeter of the quilt sashing.
For the border I really wanted to give the quilt a pop of pattern so I used a black and white gingham print fabric. I cut the fabric into 2 1/2" long strips and made my own binding. I followed the tutorial from Simple Simon and Company for making your own quilt binding. Their tutorial is easy to follow and has a ton of pictures!
Here is my finished quilt!!
The finished quilt measured 50" x 50". I am super happy how it turned out! It was such a fun project that whipped together in no time at all. This certainly has become one of my favorite baby quilts and I'm sure I will be using it again in the future when I need to make another baby quilt.
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