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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The totally free quilt

Last week I posted what to do with clothing that your kids have outgrown, but still love
http://creativesavv.blogspot.com/2012/06/when-your-kids-still-love-clothes.html ).                                
This week I thought I'd share, what do you do when Mom still loves the clothes that your kids have outgrown, otherwise known as The Free Quilt.


When my girls were about 4 years old, I had a huge pile of baby and toddler clothes that they'd outgrown, almost all pink stuff.  I sorted this pile into 2 stacks, one for the items in very good condition that I could pass on to another child, and the other for articles too stained to really pass on (babies do spit up, toddlers do spill all over themselves).

With the pile of too stained items, I set out to make a twin-size quilt for one of my daughters (I had another quilt already for my other daughter). I went with a very simple pattern of squares. I removed buttons and nice trim for reuse.  Then, I cut the items apart, along the seams, to have flat pieces of fabric to work with. Using a square of cardboard, I marked all the clothing with a pen, and cut out all the squares.  I wanted to unify the pattern, so also used a solid color pink fitted sheet that I cut up for additional squares.

I had lots of odd threads in pastel colors, from previous sewing projects, to use for the machine sewing. The seams are all on the back side of the facing of the quilt, so an assortment of colors is not noticeable. For the backing of the quilt, I used the solid colored, pink flat sheet, that went with the fitted one that I used on the front. (By the way, these were sheets we had from a full-size bed, that had been given to us many years before.  They'd seen a fair amount of use, but were still useable enough for this quilt.) For the batting, I had the remains of a full-size comforter from my childhood bed. (I had previously used part of that comforter for one I'd made for my brother when he was in college.) To hold the back, front and batting together, I made teeny tiny hand stitches in white thread every few blocks, where the corners meet.

My total cost to make this quilt -- front panel (used baby clothing and one used sheet), $0.00, back panel (one used sheet), $0.00, batting to go between the two panels (most of one used comforter), $0.00, thread to sew the whole quilt together and make stitches to hold front and back together (leftovers from other projects), $0.00  =  $0.00 total cost (plus a lot of time and love).

Because the quilt is made mostly from baby and toddler clothing, it is very soft (many clothing items for babies are cotton knit). And although the quilt has seen many years of use, my daughter still keeps it as one of the layers on her bed. How about you? If you're looking for a way to hang on to those baby items that look so precious and sweet, you might consider a quilt or throw for your child's room.

2 comments:

  1. I love this so much...what a fantastic idea. I'm going to have a think about how I can do something like this...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every time I go into my daughters' room and see this quilt, I get a smile on my face. I look and see a piece of a top or romper that I remember. The time passes so quickly from babyhood to (almost) adulthood. It's nice to have this reminder of when they were small.

      Delete

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