BABY WALL QUILT FOR ZACHARY

Last year about this time, I sent DIL Sara a picture of a quilt and told her I would like to make Zachary one like it. She wrote back that she had some of his baby clothes and would give them to me to make the quilt. I was so excited. Fast forward a few months to Christmas when she gave the little clothes to me.

I saved the picture but when I finally got around to considering what fabrics I would choose to make it, I couldn't find it. I did a search which took quite a while since there were not too many out there in cyberspace of exactly what I wanted to do, but I did find a few. What I didn't find were specifics about how to attach the clothes to the blanket. To some degree Sara removed that problem when she told me she didn't want me to cut the back side off the clothes. At this point I had to just do what I find myself doing so often, I created my own version and it turned out so cute. (Well, we think so, anyway.)

All of the images I found had the blanket made from blocks and each outfit was on a different block. The problem I had was the size of the clothes, especially the sleeper which was much bigger than the rest. Choosing the prints took me the longest time to do. I wanted to match the theme of the clothes if I could and even Sara wanted dinosaurs on the fabrics as that is the theme in his room. AND I was still stressing out over the blocks and how I would do it. Finally I made the decision to make the blanket in what has become my most favorite way to make a blanket/quilt - my strip sew-and-quilt-in one blanket. 

I have been making blankets like this for several years now. I started making placemats first this way and shared the method here on my blog. I progressed to hot pads and finally to a larger version of baby blankets. Quiltingdigest.com discovered my posts and so they have become some of my most popular. I love the method because I don't do free-motion machine quilting. I just stitch in the ditch or outline when I quilt the blankets. By sewing the quilt top at the same time that I am sewing through the backing and batting means that when I have finished the top, I have also layered the quilt and sewed it together. All I have to do is trim the quilt and sew on the binding and I am finished. I have a number of posts some more detailed than others. You can check out the method at them.  Sew-Quilt-in-One and Sew-Quilt-in- One Baby Quilts. In the latter post/link if you scroll down to the end, I show you how to join the binding edges you will ever see. I used to dread doing the binding on quilts, but now it is a breeze!

After I decided to make a strip blanket, I arranged the clothes on another finished blanket I had and used a piece of yarn to simulate the clothesline to see how the clothes were going to look on the quilt.

On our bed I arranged the strips and the clothes to see how it looked. Since I was one print short, I decided to just use the one dinosaur print at the top and bottom. The solid blue jumpsuit actually has the outline of cars on it. I couldn't find a flannel with cars but I found a truck print with dinosaurs driving them.

The monkey print was the hardest to find. Lots of animals but no monkeys except the white background one I found with a few monkeys. I was lucky that there was a monkey on the print between the two outfits. 

Even though I had planned to make the blanket a "sew-and-quilt-in-one" , I had not picked out the material I wanted to use for the backing, so I just sewed the strips together and made the top.

While the finished top was on my design wall, I placed the outfits again and pinned them on to make sure I still liked it. (I had taken a picture of it on my bed so I knew exactly where to place the clothes.) The sleeper was so cute. Hanging on the wall, the feet "fell out" and you could see the little monkey's face.

I bought a kid's jump rope of Dollar Tree to use for the clothes line. I didn't take a picture of it, but it was perfect - lime green/white. But first I had to finish the blanket.

I found a piece of cotton to use for the backing. The front pieces are all flannels but I didn't think the backing needed to be flannel. I had a darker brown piece in my stash that worked well for the binding.

Here was the blanket finished...well almost. I had one more thing to do. Can you see how I machine quilted it in the picture? I stitched 1/4 inch from the seam across the strip. That worked out fine.

What did I almost forget? The band across the back to hang the blanket. 

I made a tube and then slip-stitched it down twice on the bottom.

  

I took it to them when we went to visit in July. We didn't get it hung while we were there, but they finally did and son Jeffrey sent me a picture of it on the wall in Zachary and Henry's room. I'm anxious to see it for myself when we go back at Christmas. Oh I guess you are wondering how the clothes are attached to the blanket? I bought some small clothespins and "hung" the clothes on the clothesline with them. I pinned the clothes on the inside with big safety pins out of sight. I sewed the jump rope clothes line on at the ends of course but also again before and after the outfit.

I'm sure you want to see a picture of Mr. Zachary. Here is a cute one Sara sent me from July. He loves flowers.

Here he is this past weekend at the Pumpkin Patch.

Here is a picture of him taken yesterday after his first haircut. Isn't he just so precious?!

Hope y'all have a great day!