Electric Blankets - Nightmares Or Dreamsleep

With a memory book you need to make a decision at what point you will pass it on to your child. You can avoid this decision by having two memory books - one for you to keep always and one for your grown-up child. Another way to do it is to wait until your adult son or daughter seems to be settled in their first house after college or after their marriage or first child.

Don't be afraid to use your handmade quilt. The layers and the warmth of the batting make it perfect for keeping you warm cold winter nights. Even after many years of use, this author has several quilts that are still in excellent condition.

Set your sewing machine to the standard seam allowance used for quilts, which is an exact quarter inch seam. One way to improve a block that is either too large or too small is to use the freezer paper method and square up the block before sewing it together. Gridded freezer paper makes the job easier, but the plain freezer paper will work to help make the block more even.

The middle layer or the batting is the inner layer between the quilt top and the backing. The batting gives the quilt its thickness and strength, not to mention it's coziness. You can purchase batting by the yard or precut to fit different bed sizes. It's important to remember to follow the manufacturer's instructions for pre-treating and washing your batting.

Blanket Quilt Applique: Adding a name to this baby clothes quilt can be done at this time by appliqueing the letters directly on top of the clothing or appliqueing the name on a strip of material and then sewing the strip between your rows.

You can also get ahold of the grandparents to be and see if they have any clothes or blankets saved from the parents' childhood. If they do you could include these fabrics in the quilt for their child making it a multi-generational quilt, which will no doubt be a family heirloom.

Then we have the bumper. Bumpers go around the inside of a crib and provide padding between the slats of the crib and your precious baby's noggin. They also provide a way for your child to keep their arms and legs inside the crib while they sleep, thus helping to prevent any late-night cry sessions because an arm fell out the side of the crib, then got twisted. It's a fairly necessary piece of equipment, but can be used as a step when junior gets older, so it has it's time and age limit.

If you're not sure what design you should use, take a trip down to the closest fabric store and take a look at their collection of baby quilt patterns. If it is your first attempt at quilting, remember to keep it simple. A lot of the time less is more. This may mean something like the sky with some white clouds. Many people decide on a patchwork design even for baby quilt patterns. Pink and blue are always appropriate colors for babies so you really can't go wrong with that. If you don't know the baby's gender, than white or yellow is a safe, neutral choice.