The Baby Gift Dilemma - Generate A Handmade Quilt

Have you ever needed to throw together a quick quilt? Many quilting pros laugh at the notion, but sometimes we need a quick gift to give and want to make it personal. Lap quilts and baby quilts are very easy to create on an embroidery machine.

Blanket Quilt Wedding Blanket: From Africa to the Philippines, couples are wrapped in a blanket that is to be their marriage coverlet. Include this warm ritual in your wedding. Let friends with marriages you admire wrap you in the blanket. Does anyone in your life quilt? If so they'll need a LOT of forewarning! Use the quilt on your bed, or keep it on the couch for when you snuggle.

Lay out of the quilt: Lay the quilt backing out on a flat surface (such as a bed) and then place the rows sewn together on top of it. This way you can visually see how long to make your rows and also see how you would like to arrange these rows. After you have decided - sew these rows together. Iron the seams open.

Using a sewing machine, sew along the lines. For each line, start at the top of the fabric, as close to the edge as you can get. When you reach the bottom, sew a little past the edge.

You can either hand quilt or machine quilt your baby shower gift. Following the perimeter of the shape or you can choose to use a quilter's pencil and template and draw a design and quilt the design. Either way, you will be stitching through all three layers, which not only fasten the layers together, but create a design, as you quilt.

If you are starting from scratch keep a few things in mind. Keep your time constraints in mind when deciding what type of baby quilt to make. A crocheted version takes the longest amount of time, a patchwork version requires a great deal more work than say a tie version.

Because of their smaller size, baby quilts are much easier to make than a normal sized quilt, and can be put together more quickly. Consider using fabric scraps from another project, and simply cut them into blocks, or strips that you can easily match and piece together to produce a beautiful quilt for baby. By using flannel for your batting, the blanket that you quilt will be warm and cozy.