Good morning! I’m very excited to share with you the first and only quilt I have made to date! I am not much of a quilter, not that I don’t think I would enjoy quilting, I just have never found the time to make one! This quilt, my Mother’s Day Quilt, was an easy way to try it out. It is by no means fancy or intricate, but it holds a lot of sentimental value and I absolutely love it!
When my sister and I were growing up, my mom made a lot of clothing for us. Lots of special-occasion dresses for Christmas, Easter, and First Communions – but also everyday clothes like baby rompers and, as we got older, jumpers and jersey dresses. I have scraps and scraps of leftover fabric from these outfits and I have such fond memories of wearing a lot of the clothes that I wanted to do something with the scraps. I decided they would make a beautiful quilt and a great Mother’s Day gift!
I figured while I was already making one quilt, I might as well make two more – one for my sister and, heck, one for me, too!
Below is the description on how I made the quilt. I do not have a step-by-step tutorial as I made this quilt several years ago. It is, however, pretty straightforward, I wanted to keep things simple! If you, too, have fabric scraps, or even t-shirts that are sentimental, this is a great way to preserve them!
I made my quilt with 40 fabric squares that each measure 6″ x 6″ in the finished quilt. I originally cut each square 7″ x 7″ so I would have a half-inch seam allowance all the way around. Some of my fabric scraps were too small to get a 7″ x 7″ square, so I pieced together four scraps to make one square.
I laid all of my squares out and arranged them in a pattern I liked. Then I went ahead and stitched them to the white pieces I had cut to hold all of my squares together. Each square has 1″ of white fabric bordering it. The white pieces lining the outside of the quilt are 1.25″ wide.
After I finished the entire front of the quilt and pressed it really well, I was ready to assemble the quilt. I stitched the front layer to a large piece of purple gingham I decided to use as the backing. I sandwiched a layer of flannel in-between these pieces. I stitched all the layers together close to the outside edge.
I then bound the quilt using some light-blue polka dot fabric I had cut into strips. I can’t remember if I cut it on the bias to be like bias binding or if I left it on grain since it would not need to stretch. Either way, I applied it as you would a bias binding around all four edges.
To connect my layers throughout the center of the quilt, I tied them together at the corners of my fabric squares. Using a needle and embroidery thread, I went through all three layers and then tied a bow on the back of the quilt. I think yarn may have worked better than the embroidery thread I used since it looks very unraveled now. It is nice because it doesn’t show up on the front of the quilt, but I wish it looked nicer on the back.
I finished the quilts off by embroidering the bottom right square (which I purposefully chose as a solid fabric) with the date and a little message.
I love looking at all the fabric squares and remembering the outfits my mom made with the fabrics. Some of the outfits we still have and others were worn so often they didn’t survive!
Do you have fabric scraps you have been hanging on to for years? This would be a great use for them!
