1 yard each of 6-8 different colors of gingham fabric. Make sure that the size of the squares differs too.
One spool of white thread (if you don’t already have one).
Fiber fill (crib size).
Double stick fusible web.
A coloring book with a picture of an animal that your child or grandchild loves.
A scrap of material that is the appropriate color for the animal you have chosen, as brown for a dog or green for a frog.
This quilt is crib size although you can certainly make it as big as you want. The idea is to make 9” squares out of the gingham that you have bought. You can cut 9” squares, or you can make 9” squares by sewing together four 5” squares. I’m allowing ½” for seams as gingham does tend to unravel easily. See Figure #1.
Sew your squares together to form a width equal to a crib size quilt and a length 2X the length of a crib size quilt.
Iron double sided fusible webbing to one side of the solid color fabric that you have chosen for your animal. Hint: The pictures in children’s coloring books make wonderful patterns for children’s quilts. Place the drawing of the animal on the fabric and cut it out. Iron the fabric animal to one of the squares in your quilt. My example (below) has patches of gingham fused to a solid boarder. See Figure #2.
Fold the quilt in half and sew up the two sides. Turn the quilt inside out and carefully place a crib sized piece of fiberfill into the quilt sack. Center and sew the open end closed. See Figure #3.
With 3 strands of embroidery floss or pieces of yarn (about 6” long) and a large eyed sewing needle make a close stitch through the quilt top, fiber fill and the underside of the quilt. Bring the needle right back up through all three layers close to the first. Tie the two pieces of yarn/floss together in a double knot. Repeat every 6 to 8 inches. This will hold your fiberfill in place. See Figure #4.
There are so many things you can do with this idea. We'll explore more on this subject next week.
