Baby Linens In Your Nursery

First up is the baby quilt or blanket. Useful most of the year, it can be a little much for your bundle of joy during the summer. But for spring and fall, and especially winter, it will keep your new child toasty and snug. Most people will have more than one blanket for their child, either from previous children or from gifts, so this may not be too necessary.

Handmade Baby Blankets A handmade baby blanket gift speaks to the heart of any new mother. Knowing someone spent the time, thought and effort to make a hand made gift in this day and age means a lot. You can crochet, quilt, embroider a baby blanket to make it unique and special. In fact, you can make a baby blanket that requires no sewing at all, and will be just as special because you put yourself into the gift.

Making a quilt takes some time and effort. You may want to get started as soon as you find out your loved one is having a baby. This will leave you plenty of time to get the quilt done, and contact other family members who want to be involved in the project.

Blanket Quilt For making perfectly straight cuts, choose a thick, clear acrylic ruler. A good size to start with is a 6x24" rectangular ruler marked in 1/4" increments.

I then sewed all the squares together, in an alternating pattern. I now had the quilt top. I used soft fleece for the backing and put a piece of quilt batting in between the two. I found that if you spray an adhesive on the quilt batting it helped to keep the pieces from shifting too much. After pinning the quilt, I sewed a dark blue blanket binding around the outside edge. All that was left was to tie it. I used 6 strand embroidery floss, and hand knotted every corner except the corners at the blanket binding.

Your baby shower gift will be complete when the edges are finished and the binding is sewn in place. Of the two types of bindings, crosswise grain and bias, the former is a good choice because there is less risk that a split would damage the entire side of the quilt. Crosswise strips also stretch well enough to curve when needed along the outer edge of the quilt.

A century ago, cigar companies tied a bright colored silk ribbon around a bundle of cigars. Women stitched them together with black or colored embroidery floss stitches onto a fabric foundation block. They were not cut or curved, but placed side by side. Cigar company ribbons had fancy logos and used attractive fonts in black ink on yellow or orange ribbons. The various advertising on the ribbons added decoration to the quilt block. Green, pink and purple ribbons were occasionally used in the block designs, signifying a rare cigar.