Quilting And Your Old Blue Jeans
Clothes to use: Start with clean items. Besides the baby clothes you can use bibs, caps, LeoBedding socks, Halloween costumes, blankets, linens, special curtains and nursery items.
Blanket Quilt It is pretty to learn to sew quilt squares, you can do it by hand or with a machine. You can find an entire kit at the craft store that will provide you with the instructions, and all the material you need to make a square. Most of these kits you buy one square at a time, then put them all together. This makes quilting a little less overwhelming, since you only have to focus on getting one square at a time done. When it comes to the actual quilting of the blanket you can do it yourself or you can also pay someone else to do it for you. There are machines that make quilting very easy, but unless you are going to do a lot of quilting it might be more economical to have someone else do the quilting or do it by hand.
In addition to the ten ideas for creating other items from your old or extra pieced blocks, you could consider donating your extras to charity. Local senior centers that offer quilting classes might welcome the gift of some prepared blocks. If you are interested in keeping the money yourself, you can sell your extras. Advertise them in a local paper or in online classifieds. You should also consider an online auction. Try selling them in a yard sale.
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.
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.
After the quilt has been stitched from one side to the other, it is now time to take it out of the frame and see what a masterpiece of fashion that you have created. But you are not done with this project yet, you have to attach a binding around the edge to finish the quilt and before you can start enjoying the warmth of this one of a kind blanket you have created.
When people were married quilts were gathered and packaged to present to the new couple. This helped the new household and took a large burden off the new wife who would be busy adjusting to new duties as the lady of a household.
