Project of the Month: Baby blanket

I like to think of myself as thrifty, so when I had scraps left over from cutting kits for projects, I didn’t want to throw them away.

  I use scraps for all sorts of projects. This time I decided to create a baby blanket.

Cut the fabric into 2.5 inch strips and then sew 2 colours together. Then cut into 2.5 inch segments =  15 – 4 patch square blocks.

I really like my corners to match up. Pressing the seams in opposite directions and nesting the blocks together assists greatly with this goal. You can actually feel when the blocks are set properly. Pin in place to ensure they stay in place.

Note –  the two seams nested together in pic above.

Cut 15x   4.5 inch blocks of another colour fabric. Then sew them together with the 4 patch blocks – these are the alternating blocks.

To quilt my baby blanket, I used the Janome Ditch quilting foot. While there are two ditch quilting feet, the best one for my project was the AcuFeed Flex Ditch Quilting Foot with Ditch Quilting Soleplate SD  because I have multiple layers with a batting in between and the Acufeed Flex foot works extremely well to feed all layers simultaneously.

I wanted to use this foot because I wanted my lines of stitching really straight. I used both a decorative and a straight stitch for quilting.

To stitch in the ditch, sew in the ‘well of the seam’, right where two quilt fabrics join. Ideally, this type of quilting will not show. This is an easy technique to use for quilting a quilt. Simply follow the lines of your piecing.

The ditch quilting foot can be used for other types of sewing too. It can be used for top stitching, applique, heirloom sewing and putting on a binding. Enjoy finding new projects to use this fabulous foot.

I love to use decorative stitches to quilt in the ditch. I think it adds so much to quilts.

As you can see, my stitches show up on the back of the quilt, perfectly straight.

When all the blocks were sewed together, I added 4.5 inch wide strip borders.

I had enough scraps to make a matching binding using so I cut the scraps into 2.5 inch strips. I sewed them all together, pressed the seams open and folded the binding in half.  Next up was to sew the binding to the back of the quilt matching the binding to the edge of the trimmed quilt sandwich. Flip the binding to the front, press and clip or pin in place. The same decorative stitch that I used for the quilting was used to stitch the binding down.

I like to use the same decorative stitch on my bindings. I feel like it completes the project.

The finished quilt worked out to be 29 by 32 inches – a bunch of scraps that most people would have thrown out, wee turned into a beautiful baby blanket.