Sew Easy Baby Quilt

I'm always busy with something. Always. Because of this I am always looking to do things that are quick and simple.

In the course of a few months I found out four of my friends/family members were expecting. Four. And for some reason I really wanted to make something for the wee ones that I had never done before: quilts.

Quilts take a lot of time and energy, which I don't have a ton to spare. So I decided to go as simple (and inexpensive) as I could and here's what I came up with!

I'm probably not the only crafter out there who likes to 'freestyle it', meaning not go off any sort of pattern. Usually I see something I like, figure it out in my head how to do it, and do it. This quilt was very free style but I thought I'd share how I did it for all who need a 'pattern' to follow.

I started out with a charm pack of 42 5x5" squares. I ended up getting them on ebay for about $5.50 a pack and made two quilts out of one charm pack. By using the charm pack as the only patterned material it saves a TON of $$$ and still looks fun and stylish.

Then I got plain white cotton fabric and light pink fabric for the back. I think the back was about a yard and a half and the front as well. And you want about a half yard of material for the binding, I was just using the pink I had. All of the solids were at a great deal of $1.50 a yard (JoAnn's was having a sale!)

Each white strip between the charm squares are 3x5" and the outside white boarders are 6" by the length of the quilt.

Sew the 3" strips in between the charm squares making four rows. Then add long 3" strips to put the rows together.

Tip: When putting the rows together, make sure to line up the square's edges. This was the one thing I really took my time on because I knew if I hurried too much and the edges didn't line up, it wouldn't look good at all. It doesn't take too long to do but it sure pays off in the end.

For the back of the girls quilt I used some fuesable interfacing (which I have been loving lately) to make a little bird out of some coordinating fabric and a left over square from the charm pack. You don't have to do this but I like doing something fun on the back because then it's almost like two quilts in one!

Then I quilted it on a long armed quilter, but it can be quilted however you'd like. I thought doing some straight lines might look cool. To each their own.

Then to do the binding I used a technique my mom found here . It's simple, great and I like it SO much better than any store bought stuff, which I have tried. I found the store bought binding harder to work with and doesn't look as good.