Quilted Mod Baby Blanket

I am OBSESSED with quilting and I want to quilt every piece of fabric that I see right now.  When my friend, Wendy, had her baby back in February, I was just coming off of working 12 hour days plus morning (noon and night) sickness, so I didn’t get to make anything for her super-adorable baby, Ben. When I am shopping for cute, modern, prints online I almost always overbuy for later, and I realized I have a ton of fabric left from my nursery.  I decided to experiment and try making a stroller-sized mod blanket for little Ben.

As you can see, I don’t take much time planning my designs out: 

 

 

I decided to use Alexander Henry’s “2D Zoo” and “Entertaining Elephants”, Michael Miller’s “Disco Dots”, and an Essex linen in lime.  The back was mostly light blue Minky Dot, but I didn’t have quite enough, so I did a wide “Disco Dots” border.  The front was free-motion quilted, but my meandering is quite far apart and loose, because I wanted to keep it simple and not too crinkled.  

I borrowed (stole) Oh Fransson’s idea of appliqueing a felt animal to the lower corner of the blanket.  An elephant seemed fitting, since they are in both main fabrics.  To make a template for the elephant, I found the image online and printed it out in the size I wanted. The applique is ironed on with very light weight fusable (Lite Steam a Seam 2) and then satin stitched on using the buttonhole setting on my sewing machine.

From start to finish this took me a half day, so it was very satisfying to have results quickly. Not sure how many hours, but I didn’t begin until 2pm when the electricians redoing our wiring left and I wear out early, since I am 32 weeks pregnant. 

Here is the finished product.  I can’t wait to make more for all the upcoming babies!!