7 Great Ideas Discovering That Perfect Baby Gift

Use the tailor's chalk to draw lines connecting the marks at the bottom of the fabric to the marks at the top. You want the lines to be as straight as possible. To achieve this, take something long and flat (like a long piece of cardboard) and use it as a guide while you draw the lines.

Blanket Quilt The cold, damp nights were particularly tough to get through with any kind of true rest. The warm quilt material was a welcome protection and security from the drafty old colonial houses and they quickly became popular.

With right sides facing each other, place another rectangle, this time a solid one, over the first rectangle and edges even with side 2 of the center piece. Always cover the previous piece (in this case the first rectangle). Sew from the edge of the previous rectangle to the edge of side 2.

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.

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.

Clothes to use: Start with clean items. Besides the baby clothes you can use bibs, caps, socks, Halloween costumes, blankets, linens, special curtains and nursery items.

Some women used larger scraps, and often the block's strips were a variety of widths. Scrappy strips were asymmetrical and uneven, or pointed, or on the bias. Whatever fabrics were available, they were used as is. There was no time to waste cutting them to size. Women used an old blanket or quilt as the filler and tied the layers together; winter was near -- no time for quilting it.