Super Stash-Busting Baby Quilt

Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope your beer is cold and the grill is hot!

A male coworker that Keith and I have known for over 10 years has just been smacked by Karma straight in the face! Last week his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. His first child was a boy and now everyone who knew this gent when he was single is having a great laugh that God is going to make him suffer to see what all those fathers went through when he was running loose. That said, what better excuse to make a quilt right?

I had actually started this quilt a couple of years ago when my dad was in the hospital. I drug my rolling sewing machine caddy, fabric and all, into his hospital room and made piles of lights, darks, and whites on his bed.  I knew I’d be there for several hours that day so I set up shop using his bedside table for my machine. He got such a kick handing me the squares I needed to put the blocks together. It was a very comforting memory as I stitched this up and it made me smile.  I can’t believe he’s already been gone over a year and it warms my heart that a man who recently passed had a hand in making this quilt for a new little life.

I used 2.5” strips from Windham’s Basics Pastels that I had grabbed from a Missouri Star Quilt Company daily deal some time ago.

I also had some pink yardage in my stash I used for sashing. One of the unique features of this quilt is that I had to piece the batting. If you’ve never done that, it’s a fairly simple process that makes you feel like a quilting super hero by using up those scraps. I begin by steam ironing the pieces to flatten them out and then trim the edges to even up the sides and create a straight stitching seam.

Most modern machines have a Joining Stitch.  If you can’t find it or have an older machine, you can use a large, wide zigzag stitch.  To begin, place both pieces side-by-side with no overlap under the presser foot with the seam just a hair to the right of the center mark on the foot. I recommend testing this with scraps first to determine where the join will be on your machine before doing this on the actually batting to be used in a quilt. This completed batting is actually 4 pieces. Perfect!

I got all high-tech and used dinner and salad plates to create the quilting pattern. I used a Frixion pen to draw the design and it disappears within a split second of hitting it with an iron. Then I ran a decorative wavy stitch through the center of the sashing.

This project was a real stash-buster by using up fabric I had on hand for the blocks and sashing, I created the batting from scraps and I had the cuddle bubble for the backing from some Quillow project I made for Keith’s granddaughter about 4 years ago. What could make this the Ultimate Stash-Busting Quilt? Why using left-over binding from my granddaughter’s nursery of course! And get this, I had just enough of the strips already pieced together! Yay!

I sewed the 2.5” strips to the front, pinned the back side just over the seam line and then stitched-in-the-ditch on the front using my blind hem foot. Finished! I’m pretty happy with how this turned out and I’m proud to give it to the new baby girl. I think I might machine embroider her initials on the corner. I hope this quilt is well loved and she drags it around everywhere until it falls apart.