Baby Quilts

Many families are having babies. Girls and boys. Cute chubby health ones.

Brings me to making baby quilts. My friend Marilyn's daughter Leslie, is having a little girl some time in April or May. Marilyn has been a Grandma more times than I can remember from her 4 boys. This is the first from her daughter Leslie. Daughter's always have a special place in mother's hearts. Maybe it is because we immediately go back to our experiences when we were having babies and the special struggles and challenges that only women can understand. This knowledge brings a different kind of kinship between a mother and a daughter. I wish that specialness for my friend.

Marilyn Dieckhoff

Quilt for Leslie Jones' new baby girl

New Miss Jones - born 4-19-08

All the more reason to shop for some springy pink fabric to make up a baby quilt. Leslie has picked stars, moons and fairies to decorate the babies room. I found this cute pink flannel for the backing with yellow moons and white stars that will be so soft for the new baby to lay on. As it is Easter time there was cute soft yellow with tulips and a complimentary soft yellow polka dot too. It still have a half a bolt of muslin from Mom's stash to use as the light fabric. I found an Eleanor Burns pattern from an old TV show I had saved that makes a big old star block. It will be good to try that out for a baby quilt.

I only need four blocks and the pieces are from 6 1/2" and 7 1/2" strips cut into squares. The 7 1/2" is matched with a complimentary fabric, marked on the diagonal, then sewn on each side of the mark. Cut that up on both diagonals, press and you are ready to make up the stars points. Sew alternating colored triangles together and voila - star points. Sew all these pieces together as any normal 9 patch - match each row, sew those together, then match up the rows and sew together with the assembly line sewing method and your done with each block. Cut up some 3" strips for sashing with a floral 3"x3" corner stone and top is finished.

Here are the instructions:
9 Patch Star
1) Fabric A - Cut 1 - 61/2" strip (center fabric)
2) Cut that into 6 1/2" squares (4 units)

3) Cut that into 8 - 6 1/2 squares,
4) Then cut each one of the 8 pieces on diagonal (16 units)
5) Fabric A, B, C - Cut 2 of each fabric - 7 1/2" strips (star)
6) Cut that into 7 1/2" squares

7) Draw a diagonal line corner to corner on fabric C
8) Match up squares Fabric A to C and B to C
Be sure to match fabric A to C in correct pattern for box pattern around center
9) Sew 1/4"on either side of diagonal
10) Cut apart on diagonal and again from corner to corner
11) Press all pieces toward dark
12) Match opposites together matching (or pinning) center so pattern works

13) True up folded unit to 6 1/2" then press open - Trim off corner points



14) Lay out pieces and sew together 9 patch assembly style

15) Fold row 2 over row 1 - sew right edge
Continue with next block until all row 1 - 2 are sewn together
16) Open and fold row 3 over row 3 - sew right edge.
Sew all 4 blocks as same time.
17) Press seams alternating directions so seam lock together on next step
18) Fold row 1 to 2 and lock and pin seams. Sew 1/4" seam.
19) Press seams
20) Cut 3" sashing strips from Fabric C with 3" corners from Fabric A.

It is cute and big. I think maybe a 5 1/2" or 4 1/2" might be better, but with pastels it works really well and the colors are not over powering the pattern.
Star Block
Two years of flannel needed to be pieced on one side to make it big enough. Then tie together with the stuffing and sew the edges and it is ready for Leslie's new family member.

On to the next. Beth Henry grew up with John from grade school through when they both graduated from high school. She was the first girl he ever kissed in first grade. A little boy sharing a "kitty cat" with the pretty girl with blond hair who lived down the street from him. The teacher of course would have none of that and stopped John's kissing in his tracks. He probably didn't share a real good ole' kiss with anyone until he met Rachel, his lovely wife.

Beth grew up and fell in love with Adam Jones and lived happily ever after. She and Adam have two nice little cute blond haired children and now Harmony, their little girl has joined the family. Seems like a good time to make up another baby quilt for Harmony. Third kids often don't get the special recognition they need, so quilt for Harmony it is.

March 2008 Finish the Red / White Hexagon

The plastic bag of Red / White pieces lurked next to my sewing machine beckoning for some attention.

After the tediousness of the beige and yellow diagonal I couldn't imagine that the red/white one would be more complicated so I opened the bag and began the matching process to see what had been done 30 years ago that summer we moved from Texas back to Colorado.

The fabrics were sorted stacked in similar piles and pressed flat to get rid of the crinkles from being enclosed in the bag for so long. It looked like a daunting task, but little by little the pieces seems to start matching up. Some hexagons were completed. Some were missing a section or two. Triangle pieces were pinned together ready to sew with the tiniest pins I have seen. I unpinned them and sorted them back into similar piles. I put aside those tiny pins to use the quilting pins that had become my favorite over the years.


It seems that in the 70's I had sewn the triangles together on the machine and then together into the hexagon by hand. Maybe my Mom, Frances, had helped with the hand sewn as I'm not much of a hand sewer myself.

With all the strip and assembly line sewing methods that I had been using from Eleanor Burns direction, I decided that there was a faster way. I had a bolt of white left from my Mom's stash of fabrics. This was probably something she had bought for this red/white quilt years ago and there is was still available to finish up this project.

For the red hexagons with white centers, I cut 3" strips out of the white and lay the red pieces along the strips as I assembly line sewed them together. This worked pretty well to sew up stacks of the reds. I carefully cut out the pieces into the triangle shapes. There were fewer red middles so I just did the old fashion way by sewing each of the small pieces together matching white borders with red middles assembly line style.

Once these were pressed with every other triangle toward middle or away from the middle so it would lock together better, it was time to start assembling them into hexagons. Pinning at the border where the red and white came together seemed to kept the unit matching at the seams.

The matching in the center is the most important. I put 2 triangle units together, sewed on the third, then pressed this flat with seams going the same direction. Once there were 2 three part sections, I pinned the middle triangle point to match the other piece, pinned the borders so they would match and sewed the two pieces together.

As the pattern that was originally intended was long lost, I laid out the pieces on the floor trying to come up with the best pattern. It seems all those previous tries as finding the right mixed with strips of each color (white borders and red borders) or trying to start in the middle and keep adding on a row finally disappeared as the real pattern emerged.



Once I had some success sorting and sewing the pieces together, I wanted to know the plan for a finished quilt. As I laid out some of the finished hexagon pieces they just seemed to fall into place. It idea was that I would have blocks of hexagons that would be sewn into a larger quilt. It looked like a flower with a white center and six red units around the center. With six "flowers" the quilt would be big enough as a throw. The flower units could be connected with extra hexagons in alternating colors.

The border of the quilt reflected part of the hexagon. It would be more difficult to finish it off. It made sense to add half hexagons along the top and a solid piece of red along the sides. A strip of this same solid piece would be added to the top and bottom to tie it all together.

I figured out how many red borders and white borders were needed. I was about 20 short on the reds and had plenty of the whites for this pattern. As I sewed all the previously cut units together the finished hexagons stacked up waiting to be made into a quilt. There were a few units that were missing pieces. I pulled out the boxes of fabric sorted mostly by color that were stored in the garage. Sure enough there were a couple of stacks of red fabric were the pieces that were saved from years ago. I found just the fabrics needs to complete the missing pieces. It seems that these reds were purchased in quarter yard units of 10 or 15 different patterns. Today I usually buy 2 or 3 yards to spread the colors around several quilts or use as borders.

The unit measurements were as follows:
Border of triangle - Trapezoid 3" x 3 1/4" sides x 6"
Top of triangle - Equilateral 3" x 3" x 3"

I needed to true up the hexagons and had been unable to find the anything that would work at the stores. My husband Stan, cut a piece of Plexiglas, smoothed the edges and scribed the six units across the top. It works great to true up the units.