Leftover Quilting

While I wait for inspiration to arrive on The Uninspired Quilt I’ve been working on for several weeks now, I decided to raid my stash of leftover fabrics from other projects. So far I’ve gotten two baby quilts out of it and enough for a third project.

The first stash I came upon was from a baby blanket I made for my second cousin Stella. The fabrics are adorable, featuring ladybugs and daisies, and I felt completely ready to make another blanket using these fabrics. This wasn’t just because there was so much leftover, but because the simplicity in the color scheme, the cuteness of the patterns, and the type of blanket I was going to make all seemed to come together effortlessly. My first project was going to be a small baby blanket or wall hanging, or as many of the recipients have done, both… in that order.

Now, these projects were from the beginning going to be put into my Etsy shop for sale, so why I was able to work on them so quickly is beyond me, unless, of course, The Uninspired Quilt just doesn’t have the same pull. I don’t know, maybe I need to not worry about trying to finish that one for sale and possibly make it for one of my sisters. That might just be what I need to get it done and out of the house. For the wall hanging I made a stencil, cut out the pieces for the front appliqué and started piecing the quilt together. I’ve made quite a few baby blankets in this manner, so it went together rather quickly. I’m sure if I would’ve worked on it continuously it would have been done faster. These wall hangings are super cute and I’m sure if I put my mind to it could get at least two finished every day.

For the second project from the ladybugs and daisies fabrics, I wanted to make a crib blanket, and I knew I wanted it to be blocks, with every other one in the blue background fabric. This took longer than anticipated, not for ease of simply strip piecing and cutting the blocks down to size, but because I decided to hand tie the corners of every square to give it a wonderfully puckered look after it is washed. It’s not that I don’t trust my machine to do quilting stitches on it, I just really like the look of hand tied baby blankets. It gives this crib quilt character and a genuine handmade touch.

I know I can squeeze one more project out of the leftover fabrics and I’m thinking of making a tagalong blanket for a toddler, which will probably be machine quilted for extra durability. I’ve also been toying with the idea of making a mobile or puffy ladybugs and daisies, but haven’t really gotten to the planning stages for that yet.

So what is my goal from this endeavor? To go through my leftover fabric stashes and make new projects from them. And hopefully sell them. I’m pretty sure I know which fabric stash I’m raiding next and can’t wait to get started on a set of baby boy stuff too. Of course, ladybugs are bugs and daisies are arguably one of the most masculine flowers, and the color scheme or blues, red, yellow and green are quite gender neutral, so there is no reason this couldn’t be for a little boy too.


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