My First Baby Quilt

I finally made my first ever baby quilt (for my baby! what?!)! Quilts aren’t my usual choice when it comes to sewing, but I wanted to make him something special, even if he’s got like a zillion blankets from everyone now (AMAZING ones, made by family members). Blankets are always a good thing.

As you can see, we’ve got a nice pack’n’play crib (actually 20% smaller than a regular pack’n’play) at the base of our bed. Dallas researched it on Amazon, and it’s so nice because it has different stages (1- the bassinet, 2- bassinet drops about 6 inches lower for when he gets bigger, 3- you can remove the bassinet attachment and just use the bottom of the crib).

We’re still in the process of chasing our dreams and waiting to find out what our next adventure is, so we’re good to not to “live like the Joneses” and not have a nursery for now. We’re just so grateful for all of the things we’ve received from friends and family (baby showers/family and friends are the BEST)!!

I stuck to making it really basic since I had never made a quilt before and I REALLY like how it turned out.

All of the fabric is from JoAnn’s, and the quilt ended up being 33″ x 39″. When I was purchasing fabric, I got 1/4 yd of all 4 fabrics that would make up the squares on the front, 1/4 yd of fabric for the binding (which I made myself using this tutorial), and 1 1/4 yd of the fabric for the back of the quilt.

I cut 6″ x 6″ squares and followed this video to figure out how to sew all of the squares together easily. I also took a picture once I got all of the squares laid out so that I didn’t forget what order I put them in (highly recommend, unless you have an easy pattern).

Next I layered the back of the quilt, quilt batting, and front of the quilt and tried to line up the fabric as straight as possible. I cut the batting down a little, but I didn’t cut the back piece until I was done with all of the quilting. I used this batting (bought in baby blanket size and used a JoAnn’s coupon since it’s a little expensive at full price) and this basting spray (also use a coupon! It’s even cheaper than buying from Amazon if you use a JoAnn’s coupon) and I was SO glad that I did!

The batting is a thinner, more compact batting because I didn’t really want to make a blanket with really fluffy batting (just a preference). The basting spray was so easy to use and held all of the fabric in place while I was sewing. I just followed the directions on the can and put something heavy in the center of my quilt so that my fabric wouldn’t shift when I was lifting the fabric to spray. (Make sure you spray the batting–NOT the fabric. It does say that in the directions).

Once it was adhered together, I ironed out any wrinkles and re-positioned the fabric if I needed to. The basting spray stayed pretty sticky, so I just lifted the fabric and laid it back down the way I wanted it. Then I sewed along the sides of the squares. I sewed along one row of squares, then rolled my fabric (to fit inside my sewing machine and not get in the way), and then sewed the next line. I repeated that until I got to the end and then turned the blanket 90 degrees to get the other sides of the squares. I sewed from the front of the quilt, but you can see that it just made nice little square patterns on the back of the quilt. Next, I cut the back fabric and batting down to the size of the front of my quilt and attached the binding.

Next time around, I’m just going to cut the batting down to size and wrap the back fabric around to the front to be the border/binding and machine sew it.

I really liked my blue fabric that I used for the binding, but I had to make the binding myself. Then, after I sewed the first side I had to hand-stitch it to the other side. I got pretty good at it by the end, but it took much longer than I wanted to spend. There are lots of tutorials on how to attach binding and finish binding on a quilt, so I just watched a few and then went for it. …That was probably my least favorite part (just being honest).

But when I was finally finished with all of the hand-stitching, I was so happy with how it turned out! Now I just need a cute Baby Braden to wrap up in it!

Have you made a quilt before? Do you have any tips to make it easier, or patterns you love that are good for beginners? Did you have a baby quilt you loved when you were little?