Easy DIY Baby Quilt

I used to be good about honoring and celebrating the major life events of friends with handmade cards and gifts. It’s definitely one of the things that Motherhood has pushed to the side. It’s something I’ve been striving to get better about recently.

When I got invited to a friend’s baby shower, I decided to make her a little baby quilt. I made one for Henry, and I honestly used it a ton. It was a great blanket to stuff in the diaper bag, bring on stroller walks, use during naps, etc. Even now, he uses it as his nap blanket at school.

Since there’s a lot going on right now, I decided to make the design even simpler than Henry’s. I also decided to make three at a time (two for friends and one for our June baby boy). First, I decided on the ultimate size of the blanket. Then I sketched out how the pieces would fit together and what size they would each need to be in order to fit into the overall size (making allowances for the seams).

Next I used my cutting mat, rotary cutter, and a metal ruler to cut the pieces into the right size. Those three things make this kind of project so much easier. When I needed to cut extra long strips that exceeded the size of my mat, I decided to fold the fabric in half which worked wonders.

Once I had the pieces for all three quilts cut, I started sewing the pieces together for the first quilt (I washed and ironed all of the fabric before getting to this stage). I ironed the seams flat after sewing each piece. Honestly, with the straight line design, the top of the quilt came together very simply and quickly (I didn’t even have to change the thread to a complementary color, since it was only on the inside of the quilt). Then I cut up a blanket we had in our closet for the back. I put the two pieces right-side to right-side and sewed most of it shut. Then I flipped it right side out and sewed the last bit by hand (with a thread that actually kind of matched this time).

With a blanket this small, I didn’t have to attach them any more than around the edges. As I mentioned, we’ve been using Henry’s for two years now without any issues!