Handcrafting A Lovely Baby 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.

Blanket Quilt Be sure and press each piece over the seam allowance as you go and to use rectangular pieces and cut back for more shapes and sizes after each go-around. Also remember solids then patterned pieces.

The method above uses machine embroidery on relatively small quilts. Larger quilts can be done the same way or may be quilted with machine embroidery by individual quilt blocks. Experiment to decide which method is easiest for you and remember that the machine embroidery quilting method may change with each unique project.

There are even specialty shops where classes can be held for the novice to the old hand. Where you can use existing patterns or have one created especially for you. You can learn to use strips of fabric from special garments from the past and embellish with new pieces from today for a one of a kind quilt.

Shirts would lose sleeves, front tabs and buttons; skirts, dresses and jeans would lose waistbands, pockets and zippers BUT you must save the buttons and zippers for another clothing project.

Now you need to sew it together with the batting and the backing. As you probably already know, a blanket isn't just made of one layer. You will have to sew it together and then stitch across the entire quilt to hold it all together. This is where you can get fancy and make pretty stitch designs. If you are looking to get this done fast, just do a basic straight stitch across the whole blanket. You will have to do this sewing by hand, so get a comfy position on your couch and get sewing!

You can either hand quilt or machine quilt your baby shower gift. Following the perimeter of the shape or you can choose to use a quilter's pencil and template and draw a design and quilt the design. Either way, you will be stitching through all three layers, which not only fasten the layers together, but create a design, as you quilt.