Quick Tied Play Quilt

[pic -- Photo of the quilt was supposed to go here, but my FDIL left this morning and I forget to get one. I have to ask her to take one when she gets back home.]

I made a quick tied sweatshirt quilt for my grandson the other night. It is real down home, no frills and no batting. I had been wanting to make it for a while now, but procrastination had got the best of those plans. I rescued several sweatshirts my son had set aside for trash and an extra lrg. old disney/winnie the pooh pullover about month ago. They were all navy blue or gray, nice colors to stand up to play times and food spills.

I measured the Winnie the Pooh area for use as one of the top center blocks. It was 9" in height and I added 2" for extra room, so total height of cut block would be 13". I made the width 13" also for ease in work (so a 13" square). I had already cut all the sweatshirts apart at the seams, leaving big blocks of fabric to work with. I cut out the WTP (winnie the pooh) block and used it as a pattern to cut out the rest, taking care not to stretch out the fabrics as I cut, just letting it sit as it normally would. Cut out -12- 13" square blocks in total. Just laid em out side by side, 4 in a column, 3 in row. Pinned right sides facing and sewed the 3 squares across each of the 4 rows first, taking care not to stretch. While I was sewing, I had the whole piece I was working on either laying on something (my little table next to my sewing machine or sometimes I use an ironing board) or what was coming off of my lap, I held up in my hand at sewing machine height and careful not to be hanging down as I sewed. This would help in lessening the distortion of the fabric. (I actually thought working with the sweatshirt fabric was going to be a pain, but it is one of the most forgiving fabrics I have worked with.)

After the rows were sewn, they were sewn together, still taking care not to distort. Laid the whole thing out, eye-balled it for squareness and did a little trimming.

But then I did not have a backing piece in mind yet. I looked around, found an old blue and white striped crib sheet. Keeping my fingers crossed that it would fit, I cut off the elastic, split the seams and laid it out. Did not fit as it was (almost did), but if I cut off the extra end "tabs" created when I split the seams at the corners, I could sew those two pieces together into one long strip and then attach it at the bottom and cut off the excess, as the "tab" piece was a little too long for the width of the sheet. Perfect fit after that alteration.

Sewed together the quilt top and sheet backing fabric right sides facing (making sure no stretching of quilt top fabric again), leaving about 10" unsewn in the bottom area, for a "hole" for easy turning. After sewing, turned to check for accuracy and to eye-ball again. Looked pretty square, so I turned it back inside out, clipped the corners and trimmed the seams. Flipped it back out, hand sewed the hole closed with a blindstitch ( a video - I hide the knot under the fold of one side of the hems and go through the hem folds with my thread to hide stitches). Tied the quilt with natural color cotton yarn at the corners, in the middle of all the sides and in the center.

Quick Tied Play Quilt Made. :)

Baby Quilt FAQ at Quilt.com
http://www.quilt.com/FAQS/BabyQuiltFAQ.html

[edited 7/10/08 -- man, I must've been tired, cuz I could hardly understand those directions! hahahahha fixed it tho'... hopefully :) still need to add those pics...]
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