Sew… I made a lot of baby things

First of all, let me forewarn you – this is a long post. :)

I’m finally getting around to posting about the quilt my mom and I made for my sister, Courtney back in November.  To say that Courtney is obsessed with Lilly Pulitzer is an understatement.  The whole nursery is full of Lilly colors, clothing, well almost everything is Lilly, except the bed.  I don’t think they make Lilly furniture but if they did, she’d buy it ;).  She even had a Lilly baby shower!  Are you surprised that she is naming her daughter Lilly?  You shouldn’t be.

Anyway, I got this idea a while back that I wanted to make something special for her but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do.  I think it came to me when I was looking through pinterest and I saw these really pretty quilts.  I thought, ‘Hey, I’ve made a quilt before and I can do it again!’  Granted, it was a t-shirt quilt.  Much easier to make because they’re meant to look ‘comfy’ (aka not perfect).

So I called my mom because she knows how to sew.  I mean my Nana was a wedding dress maker.  She agreed to help me but it wasn’t until after we finished it that she told me she thought it was going to look terrible!  Thanks, mom!

It took us two weekends to finish.  We set up sewing boot camp in her kitchen.  We laid everything out to see what we had to work with.

I didn’t take any pictures of the fabric cutting process but basically I took a transparency sheet and cut it into a 6″ square.  I wanted my finished fabric square to be 5″ so that gave me a 1/2″ seam allowance on each side.  Most seasoned seamstresses work with 1/4″ seam allowance but I was just leaving room in case I had any sewing mistakes.  :)  I laid the 6″ see-through square on the fabric and when it looked like it would be a good square for the quilt, I traced it with a fabric pen and cut it out.  I did that 63 times.  Whew!

We ended up with 9 rows of 7 squares.  My mom and I pinned each row together, pretty side to pretty side and then sewed them together.  After each row was done, I went and ironed the seams apart so that they would lay flat when we added the batting and back piece.  When all the rows were done, we started sewing row 1 and 2 together, row 2 and 3 together, etc…

Next, we laid the fabric for the back of the quilt ugly (haha that’s what I call it) side up, making sure that we had a few inches more than the total width and length of the front side of the quilt.  We then laid the batting on top of the back fabric and then the pretty part of the quilt went on top.

The next step took the longest.  Basting.  We took a contrasting thread (black) and sewed the 3 pieces together.  You could definitely tell the difference between what my mom did and what I did.  Her’s were in a nice line and mine were in crazy zig zaggy lines.

After that was done, I got to ‘quilt’ the pieces together!  I decided to follow the pattern on the front.  I just ‘stitched in the ditch’, meaning I sewed on every seam.

After I was done quilting, we trimmed the excess back fabric around the edges and my mom pinned the binding on.  She was working on that while I was quilting.  So I don’t really know what she did.  This means next time I’m making a quilt and don’t know how to bind, guess who I’m callin?

Here’s a picture of the quilt before we (and by we I mean my mom) hand sewed the other side of the binding.  She’s a good mom, huh?

I made a few other items as well.  I was in charge of one of the shower games, Pin the Dress on the Baby.  To make the game, I printed out a picture of a baby and a dress that fit her.  Before I cut the fabric, I scanned them in and printed them on card stock.  Then I traced the dress onto the card stock and cut ’em out.  Since I was in the sewing mood, I sewed a little seam around the edges of the paper dresses.

After Pin the Dress on the Baby was done, I moved on to burp cloths!  I made 5 for Courtney and 5 for my friend Marcie who had her baby on January 4th!

My mom MADE the baby’s outfit!  It has capped sleeves and everything!  When Courtney opened it up, she thought the outfit came with the baby!  I made that little pillow to go in her rocker.

You shouldn’t be surprised to find out that it took me almost as long to figure out how I was going to wrap the gifts as it did to make them.  My boss came up with the awesome idea to use burlap.  When I was having it cut at Joanns, the lady cutting it asked what I was going to do with it.  I told her I was going to use it wrap a present.  And she looked at me and said, “Hmm, well I hope whoever you give that potted plant to has a green thumb!”  I just stared at her because at no point in our conversation did I say that I was giving a potted plant.  I then tried to correct her and tell her that I was actually wrapping a baby quilt.  I think that was too much for her because she just shook her head in disbelief and said, “mmmhmmm.”

I think they turned out pretty well.  I had to hot glue (hahaha) the fabric together to get it to stay put.  Tape was not an option.  Needless to say, watching Courtney try to open them was pretty funny.  People just open presents way too fast these days.  They need to learn to enjoy the moment.  Oh yeah, I made those little L gift tags out of left over fabric.  I couldn’t use just any ole store bought tag!

I might have teared up a bit when she was opening the quilt…  But I’ll cry at any random commercial so that isn’t saying much.

I love how everything turned out and I hope Lilly likes it too!