I recently cleaned out one of my crafting cupboards and came across a project I started years and year ago... 10 years ago to be more precise. After my eldest daughter was born in 2003, I was gifted a lot of receiving blankets; like - a lot of them. They are smaller blankets, usually around 30 inches x 30 inches (76 cm x 76cm) and I probably ended up with about 20 of them. They aren't much good after about 1 year of age and when I didn't use them anymore I saved them for future babies, which didn't happen until 2008. Once again, I was showered with receiving blankets.
This made me realize that I didn't really need those older blankets from 2003 and I should find another use for them. Most of them had little stains on them, so I didn't feel like donating them would be worthwhile - I was afraid they would end up in a landfill. I decided to make a quilt for my daughter using the old blankets. My mother made me a strawberry shortcake quilt when I was very young and I still have it almost 40 years later. I wanted to make something for my daughter that she could cherish as much as I cherish my own childhood quilt.
It was going to be a present for one of her early birthdays, but - here I am, 10 years later - with 3 squares done. I started it 10 years ago and then put it away to "work on later". I will say though, it will get completed soon! Something has lit a fire in me to complete this MF'ing quilt, lol. Probably because my middle daughter is turning 10 on Sunday and I need to get her quilt started next! Hopefully it won't take 10 years to get hers done. ;) My ultimate deadline is college. Hahahaha.
Here is the process I started 10 years ago. First, I bought these really nifty clear, grid plastic sheets - specifically for cutting out quilt shapes.
Then I sketched out some of the quilt blocks I thought would be fun. Using grid paper definitely made this part easier.
Next I traced and cutout the shapes I would need on the plastic grid sheets. These are just 4 of shapes I ended up using. I have 3 different sized triangles, the parallelogram, 2 squares, and 2 rectangles.
Then I pulled out a stack of blankets and picked colors that I thought would go well together for each quilt block.
I laid down the grid shapes on the blankets and cut out some shapes. Then I sewed them up. Honestly, I did this all wrong 10 years ago. /sigh. Last time, I cut out enough shapes for 6 quilt squares and then started sewing them together. This really interrupted the workflow and I should have cut out all the shapes first, and then concentrated on sewing. But 10 years ago, I got these three blocks done. And then I put it all away to work on "later".
The first time sewing, I wasn't happy that my center points weren't perfect and the edges didn't line up perfectly. So this time around, I thought I would lightly glue my seams together first, before sewing. Well.... that didn't end up working out very well either. Yeah, the sewing would be easier, but the glue made it hard to flatten the seams out for the final sewing of each smaller portion.
This is two pieces of fabric with the 'right' sides facing each other. The 'right' side is the side you want facing out when the quilt is finished. I glued about 1/4 of an inch of the two pieces together. Honestly, I should have just put the two pieces together and sewed them without the glue.
I sat down, and cut out all the rest of the squares for the ENTIRE quilt and then I glued portions of them together. Since quilt blocks are usually sewn from smaller portions that have been sewn together, I could only glue parts of each square - and I'm glad I only glued part since that part didn't work out so great anyway.
That's about as far as I've gotten so far - but I have 30 blocks cut out with 3 sewn together (from 10 years ago) and portions of some of the other blocks sewn together. I'll post another update when I have more of the quilt sewn together - but this has been a large portion of what I've been preoccupied with lately... along with kids being home on spring break. I started to write this post up on Monday, but finally got time to finishing it up this morning. :D Have a great weekend ya'll!!
