Tied Baby Quilt for Little Twins!

So, I've told you about how to tie the knot for a tied quilt and one of the many options you have for binding a quilt.  Now, would you like to see a quilt put together from start to finish?  I hope so, 'cause that's what this post is about.  :)

A while back, a good friend of mine had twins--a boy and a girl.  If there's anything cuter than a newborn baby, it's newborn baby twins.  When my sister and I saw these pink/brow and blue/brown elephant fabrics at Jo-Anne's, we immediately knew that those adorable babies needed adorable baby blankets.

These quilts are sized to be good carry-around, lay-on-the-floor-to-play-on, tuck-around-the-baby-in-the-carseat quilts.  They are great for infants, but are still large enough for toddlers.  

For one quilt, you will need:

1 yard of fabric for the quilt top

1 1/2  yards of fabric for the backing/binding

Batting

Yarn

Big needles (large enough eyes to fit the yarn through)

General sewing equipment

Quilt frame--you can tie a quilt without a frame, but it is harder.  (You could try a large embroidery hoop.)  Whatever you choose, make sure you can keep the fabric taut.

Thumbtacks, preferable the ones are flat on the front

Alright, the first step, of course, is to cut out your fabric.  I'm not really a fan of cutting fabric (you'd think with the rotary cutter and ruler, I could cut a straight line, wouldn't you?  But no.), so it's nice that this project requires me to do very little of it.  My sister and I made these quilts about one yard square, but you could just cut the extra half yard off the backing fabric and have a nice width-of-fabric X 1 yd quilt.

Cut your batting to fit your quilt backing.  It's easiest to have your batting and backing a little larger than your quilt top--err on the side of caution, you know--but especially on a quilt as small as this, it's not really necessary.  And we'll cut the fabric for the binding later.

{UPDATE:  I should probably clarify that for larger-than-baby quilts, you really do need to have the backing and batting larger than the top.  Two-three extra inches on each side would be good.  Hopefully the quilt sandwich won't slip out of place while you're quilting, but it is possible (especially without a quilting frame), so err on the side of not having to completely re-do your quilt.  And having extra backing/batting for the baby quilt never hurt anyone, either.}

Next, sandwich the quilt together on the quilting frame.  (Quilt sandwich = backing, wrong side up + batting + quilt top, right side up.)  Use the thumbtacks to secure each layer as you add it, removing the previous layer's tacks if they are in the way.  If you are not using a frame, sandwich the quilt on whatever surface is large enough to lay your quilt out flat.  If you are making a larger-than-baby-quilt sized quilt, the floor is a good option.  Pin securely. 

(Sorry for the bad picture.)

Now you can tie the quilt.  The nice thing about baby quilts is that you can tie them in about no time flat.  Who doesn't like instant gratification?

If you'd like a refresher on how to actually tie the knots for a tied quilt, see this post.

You are almost done already!  Last step: Finishing the edges.  There are several ways to finish the edges of a quilt: with prairie points, a ruffle, self-binding (like I did for my Fourth of July wall hanging), and more.  The method I used, I recently found out, is called Double Fold Binding.  (For my tutorial on this quilt binding method, click here.)

And that's it!  All you have to do now is bask in the love/appreciation/gratitude/hero worship of the lucky recipient of your quilt.

Happy sewing!