Pamelajo

Hello everyone, I am an absolute beginner. I have a tub full of baby clothes that I've saved over the past 25 years. I had always planned to make 3 quilts, one for each of my grown children and now the time has come.

I am going to use 4 inch squares and make crib size quilts....that's pretty much all I know for now. I'm planning on using contrasting squares some sort of white fabric possibly with a tiny print patterned throughout. I need something simple and easy.

I have my materials: cutting board, rotary cutter, Get Squared ruler for 4 1/2 and 8 1/2 inch squares (from wal-mart) etc. I'm ready to start cutting but I don't want to do anything wrong. Are there any tips, suggestions etc on what to do and what not to do at this point?

Thanks everyone.....love this board.

Pam :-)

b.zang

Welcome from the north. Lots of knowledge here, so you should get your question answered over and over.

If you're planning to use the clothes for quilt squares, I think I would try to match fabric types as much as possible so each quilt is fairly uniform. Also, I think you should look for the straight grain of the fabric and use it as one edge of your squares.

I've never made a clothing quilt but these are things I would do if making one.

babeegirl

get a few yards of the dollar stuff from walmart and practice practice practice before you are ready to make any cuts on the baby clothes.

mrsj82

I would get some cheap fabric from walmart and practice your cutting. Also try to match fabric types as much as possible while stil retaining your color scheme.

I've made a couple clothing quilts, and they're not very hard at all. Main thing is practice your cutting to make sure you're comfy with it before chopping into the precious clothes.

Good luck and welcome to the boards! :lol:

Spudgm

Hi,

I did somewhat the same thing except I used scraps from clothes I had made my children and I appliqued either strips as in the pic below or 5 blocks that were 10" finished with diffrent things on them and then filled in with 2 1/2" squares. This way I did not have to worry about diffrent types of material or the grain or that sort of thing and I also did not have to worry about running out of the clothing material. I just bought the material for the 2 1/2' blocks and what I appliqued on. I made one for each grandchild as they were born. So I have made 7 of them. Just plan it out before you start. Good luck and I hope you will post pictures.

auntluc

That's a really cute baby quilt, spudgm.

blueribbontoes

You may want to purchase a clear square template in the size you want your squares to be. That way you can lay out the square, and run the rotary cutter along the four sides to make a perfect square.

2ME

Hi there. I'd also make sure you check the tags on the baby clothes and try to use the same fiber content within one quilt so you don't end up with your squares shrinking at different rates in the finished quilt.

Also, I ran accross this under a google search for "Custom Quilt Kits" the other day. http://www.customquiltkits.com/ I have never used this service myself but it seems worth checking out if you are nervous about cutting things perfectly...although it sounds like you've stocked up on all the right tools to do the job yourself. Practice is of course a great idea- just remember that even if you "ruin" a square- set it aside. You can sew a couple of the bad ones together sometimes and come up with wonderful looking squares. I've seen lots of really fun quilts that have even just one or two funky squares made from different fabrics among basic squares. Kids have a great time finding the odd squares in the quilt.

butterflywing

i would cut the squares 1/2" larger than the measure you want to end up with. cut all the good parts of the material and set the blocks aside. get as many as you can. when you can't go any further, start laying them out. the quilt will tell you what to do. you will probably need a color that you don't have enough of, but the quilt will tell you. that will be the color you may have to buy. it may be different for each one.

post pics as you go. you'll get more advice than you bargained for! hee hee!

LOL

Spudgm

Thank You auntluc!