Up, Up, and Away!

Remember the niece that I made the Rock-a-Bye Baby Crib Quilt for? Well...she was born really early and is currently in the NICU until she grows strong enough to go home with her parents.  She is a tiny little thing.  Born at 1 lb. 2 oz.  and 11 inches long, she is the smallest baby I have ever seen, but she's cute (of course.) 

Little E holding her mom's finger.

So, in our free time her mom (who is living with us) and I worked on an UP QUILT for little baby E. I first designed a doll house pattern (20"x20") that would work as the house.  While I sewed that, my sis-in-law, S, sewed some of the yo-yos. I will explain in detail below what we did. 

  

Up Baby Quilt

Up Quilt

1. I pieced the doll house pattern that was found on Craftsy but has since been removed (by me). Please email me at allisonbrewer@yahoo.com for more details about the pattern. But, just make sure that you use the sky fabric for the bottom pieces that are the "grass" pieces on the pattern. 

2. Next, cut 2 fabric strips 3.5" x 20.5" from your sky fabric and sew to the right and let sides of the house using a 1/4" seam allowance. 

4. Cut a piece of sky fabric 24.5" x 26.5" attach to the top of your house section.

5.  Cut borders.  I decided on a 1" border (brown) and a 4" border (yellow), so when I cut my strips here are the dimensions that I used.

        Brown 1" borders: 1.5" x 44.5" (cut 2) (sew these length strips on 1st)

                                     1.5" x 28.5" (cut 2) (sew these width strips on 2nd)

        Yellow 4" borders: 4.5" x 46.5" (cut 2) (sew these length strips on 1st)

                                      4.5" x 36.5" (cut 2) (sew these width strips on 2nd)

The finished quilt top will measure 36.5" x 54.5". 

To finish the quilt, I tried using SPRAY BASTE For the first time. And...I LOVED IT! 

(Link to the kind I used at the bottom of this post.)

I used the free motion quilting feature of my machine for the sky and stitch-in-the-ditch for the house and the borders.

I did my binding before I attached the yo-yos.  

For the yo-yos I used a variety of colors (but mostly tried to stay with bright colors.)  This was a GREAT scrap buster project.

I used Clover Yo-Yo Makers to make the yo-yos in the 30mm, 45mm, and 60mm sizes.

I then tacked each yo-yo in place (after I laid all of them out to make sure I had them placed just where I wanted them.)

I sewed 1/8" satin ribbon on for the strings. And used fray check to finish the ends! 

While I took pictures of the quilt, my kids enjoyed playing with the Favorite at the playground.