Baby Quilt

I made this quilt last weekend for my cousin who is having a baby girl in September. I used a free project at the Moda Bake Shop site, and a “layer cake” (10″ squares) that my friend gave me last Christmas. This project only required 20 10X10 squares, so I have some left over for something else. This pattern really looks much better if you use fabric that has more contrast. A lot of my squares kind of fade into each other. BUT, it is for a baby, so she probably won’t be too picky. (I know, babies DO like contrast, but you know what I mean.) This was my first time sewing the binding on by machine rather than hand-stitching the back. It was not a great success. I found it very hard to catch the binding evenly on the back. But again, it’s for a baby. I also had some trouble with the free-motion stippling quilting. At one point, after I changed bobbin thread, something must’ve been off because I quilted at least half the quilt before realizing that while the front looked fine, the stitching on the back was all loose and messed up, so I had to rip it all out.

Other than that, this was a VERY easy and quick project, especially since I did not add the extra borders called for in the directions. I found that I could stack at least six layers and cut them all at once with a rotary cutter. My only quibble is that there is quite a bit of wasted fabric, and I feel like a project that calls for a specific size pre-cut of fabric should use as much as possible. So, after I finished this quilt I figured out a way to make similar blocks but using more of the fabric. With the original directions, you end up with 6-inch blocks (that end up as 5.5 inches once they’re sewn into the quilt top). With my new method, you end up with 9-inch blocks.

Here’s how I would cut the 10″ squares if I was starting over: