A Birthday Quilt for Reynolds

Well, my sweet little Reynolds turned one this past Saturday! It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed, but alas, here we are. We're very close to having a walking toddler who will be into everything. We've stored all of the bottles so now it's like we're feeding a real person with real food each day. I have loved all of the phases this first year, i.e. those nights where she was awake every 3 hours needing a bottle - that was just a sweet time for nightly cuddles. Then it was nice when she started sleeping 12+ hours each night because, let's face it, I love to sleep too. (We're extremely lucky that she still enjoys sleeping so much!)

Anywho, I've gotten a little off topic. In the months leading up to her 1st birthday I knew I wanted to do something special for Reynolds. Preferably something homemade since I'm all mushy like that. ;) I finally decided on making her a quilt! I've probably watched hundreds of videos on youtube, read countless DIY articles and other ways of trying to teach myself the basics of sewing straight lines over and over again...

I finally decided to use the Missouri Quilt Company's "Make a Baby Quilt" tutorial (you can find it here). It seemed easy enough! Once I had decided the type of quilt I wanted to make I decided on the type of fabric. I went with 1930s reproduction fabric, found in this Etsy shop, because I love the vintage look and feel of the 30s patterns. I ordered 2 charm packs - these are pre-cut fabric squares that come ready to sew and they typically have 25-30 squares. I also ordered solid white muslin to use for borders, and some additional yards of fabric to use for the big border and quilt backing.

I'll save you all of the step-by-step directions since I pretty much just used the youtube tutorial (I believe there are 4 videos from start to finish) and show you some of the photos.

Once I got my charm packs in, I laid them all out to figure out how I wanted to pair them up.



Then I sewed each group of 4 squares together:

I think the most important thing I learned about sewing (especially when trying to keep everything straight and lined up) is IRONING, which I'm not a huge fan of. But really, I ironed the seams every single time I sewed and that kept everything looking neat and tidy!

There were of  course some nights I just didn't feel like sewing, but knowing I had a deadline, a.k.a. her birthday, coupled with a nice, big glass of wine kept me going! :)

Once I had all of my 4 square sets sewn together I decided to add a white border. I sewed the shorter horizontal pieces to each set, then I just sewed one long vertical piece in between the rows (see 2nd picture).

Once all of the white borders were added, I decided to add a thick border just to make it larger. I wanted it to be larger than a baby quilt so this is why I just kept adding borders - now she'll be able to wrap up and snuggle in it. :)

 



Now it was time to make it look like a quilt! I was pretty nervous at this point because I had so much time and ironing invested. I did NOT want to mess it up! I headed out to Hancock Fabrics to pick up some quilt batting, a rotary cutter- which made my life much easier since I no longer had to cut long pieces of fabric with scissors and just hope I was cutting it straight, and some quilting pins (kind of like a curved safety pin).
 



Then I went back to my wine and youtube, thanks to Missouri Quilt Company, and she showed me how to assemble the quilt sandwich. Once the sandwich was made, I "stitched in the ditch" along all of my other seams. This is what gave it that "quilted" look. On a side note, it turns out there is a lot of lingo I had to learn in the quilting world. When you "stitch in the ditch" you just sew over your previously sewn seams. I would've love to hand quilt an intricate design like my grandmother did on all of our quilts, but I had neither the time nor the patience for that! Here's the final product:

I have never been so glad to be finished with a project! It actually wasn't too bad once I got started on it and I was happy that I stuck with it.

Is it perfectly sewn with perfectly straight lines? Absolutely not! But it's perfectly imperfect for my sweet little nugget. Happy Birthday sweet Reynolds!