Tag: Baby Quilts

Seashore Friends Baby Quilt

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Brand New: Seashore Friends Baby Quilt Pattern!

Create a fun, fast baby quilt using one block, four fabrics, and BOTH beautiful sides!

Firstly, the new Seashore Friends quilt is made with this one block – Rippling 4-Patch.

Image of Reflecting 4-Patch

To start, the Rippling 4-Patch block is made with seven squares and two 4-patch units. You’ll make the swell of the rippling wave “reflect” by using the reverse of each fabric to mimic the sunlight on the crest of the waves.

Use both beautiful sides of four fabrics!

Next, use four fabrics to make the blocks that repeat outward from the center diagonal line.

In this baby quilt you see four fabrics from Seashore Friends Fabric Collection (my own designs), printed by Spoonflower on the exquisite Organic Cotton Sateen. Learn more about Organic Cotton Sateen HERE. This fabric is a delight for quilters and PERFECT for baby!

Gentle rippling waves come to shore in this one-block quilt. Use the reverse side of four fabrics to mimic the sun’s reflection on the crest of the waves. No matter what your fabric motif, the reverse will add an “I Spy” activity for baby.

Seashore Friend Baby Quilt

See the full Seashore Friends Fabric Collection

Furthermore, you can find more baby quilt gift ideas, including matching accessories like bibs, drag-along blankets, even personalizable gifts right in my Etsy shop. Together with my personal touch for customized orders, these print-on-demand items will ship straight to you from the print shop where my artwork is applied.

Stitch up a quick little soft book for your special baby using the fat-quarter panel of Organic Cotton Sateen to go with your baby quilt!

Additionally, see more about The Adventures of Bubbles the Baby Whale soft book DIY panel. Watch on YouTube!

Not a nautical nursery?

Finally, suppose you (or the baby’s parents) aren’t into nautical baby. What to do? Consider other motifs like tractors, frogs, flowers, hearts – anything really, as long as they have beautiful reverse sides that work for your quilt!

image of babyquilt and merchandise
Use the easy-link, blue SHOP buttons for patterns, fabric, and merchandise at Creative Bee Studios!

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Enjoy your quilting journey!

Uncork The Bubbles

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Celebrate summer and vacations and beaches and babies! BUBBLES is a happy fellow with an irresistible smile. Now this popular baby whale is popping up everywhere!

Image of Baby Whale Sticker
Bubbles Sticker on Redbubble

You might even call this a Bubblesfest!

Your next celebration might call for more than making a Bubbles the baby whale quilt with your own two hands (gasp)! Shower that new baby or grandbaby with Bubbles on a pillow! Or splurge with curtains or removable wallpaper!

Find Bubbles the baby whale on clothing, phone cases, shower curtains, tablecloths, and more!

Indulge your senses with Bubbles fabric printed by Spoonflower.

BUBBLES the baby whale quilt is created using a fantastic fabric by Kaffe Fassett: Paint Pots. The Paint Pots fabric is a gala of bright layered circles on a muted gray background. The front side makes the shape of the whale. The reverse side of the same fabric makes his under-belly, blow-hole, and (actual) bubbles. It’s a spree of fun when you use BOTH beautiful sides of fabric!

Shop Redbubble HERE

You learn how to audition both sides of fabric with each of my #usebothsides patterns. In other words, it’s all about VALUE. SHOP more than 45 quilt patterns that use both sides of fabric.

image of textile
Starfish and seaweed dance across a bubblegum pink background while Bubbles swims to and fro.

In other words, there’s almost a theme for every occasion. Try a broderie perse applique. Or pick up a large, pieced quilt pattern. There’s a bison, deer, several bouquet’s, a bee, a butterfly and much more!

Bubbles Quilt Pattern

In conclusion, Bubbles the baby whale is happy to be part of your next party!

Now that I have exhausted all the synonms of celebration words, I will leave you with this thought:

Cheers to your next festivity!

Meet Pinky…The Baby Octopus

The Pinky Quilt Pattern is another fun way to use BOTH beautiful sides of your fabric!

As with most of my patterns, it all starts with the fabric – the focus fabric!

Image of Fabric for Octopus Quilt

When I saw this darling fish-bone fabric by dear Stella, I immediately imagined a cute octopus – but first, I had to google: Do octopus eat fish? Well, deep water ones do and this little gal has enjoyed her fill!

Meet Pinky the Baby Octopus miniature quilt!

So, here is the Pinky Quilt Pattern! Keep in mind, if you find a great blue or purple fabric or even the blue/gray fish-bone by dear Stella, you can call her/him “Inky”!

Image of Octopus Quilt.

There are lots of nautical or coastal motifs on the market that would work well for the Pinky quilt pattern!

In case you are new to this concept, these easy quilt patterns are designed to use BOTH beautiful sides of fabric to achieve an interesting balance of values. The patterns teach you how to audition BOTH sides of focus fabrics to choose just the right one AND how to audition BOTH sides of your focus fabric with your scrappy background fabrics. In the process, you learn the nuances of value – a great skill to apply to all quilt planning.

Learn more about auditioning both sides of fabric here: The Tricky Traits of Value

The top of Pinky’s body and the binding are made using the front side of the focus fabric and her under-side and bubbles are made using its reverse. Gather up some fun beachy and “water-y” background fabrics and accent strips for a delightful mix.

Image of Pinky Quilt Pattern by Pool

The Pinky Quilt Pattern comes with a full-size paper template and detailed instructions.

Pinky and all her friends are available at my Etsy Shop: Creative Bee Studios.

Want to learn more about using both sides? See information about classes, programs, and workshops HERE.

Follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram where I regularly share quilts from classes and customers!

Next time you are shopping for fabric, at a LQS or in your own stash, turn it over and #usebothsides !

One Sophisticated Lady

See how to make a baby quilt using a phone app and cutting machine!

This is a baby quilt for a classy baby’s room! It’s a personalized one, made for a friend’s grandbaby.

Firstly, I got a text from a friend to see if I would make a quilt for her grandbaby. She sent me pictures of the most beautiful baby’s room I’d ever seen! 

A personalized baby quilt.

Next, when she commissioned me to make a baby quilt, she sent photos of the baby’s room.

However, the grandmother had no specific ideas in mind for the quilt, other than to go with the theme of a somewhat “grown-up” room.

Let the fabric do the talking.

The grandbaby girl’s room is painted a very pretty taupe and pearl in large, horizontal stripes. There are some accents in soft pink and a large gold monogram on the wall.

One Sophisticated Lady

While milling around Hancocks, I found their collection of Moda Fabrics‘ Grunge–which I LOVE! They read as a solid, but are anything but boring and feel, oh, so good! It wasn’t long before I had the pearl and taupe picked out and down the aisle a little further, I found this soft pink with a little touch of gold. I sent a pic to my friend and the project began. 

A design wall is helpful!

When I got home I looked at many baby quilt designs and decided on using large half-squares because I wanted to try to keep the cost down as much as possible. After viewing many variations, I started making half-square triangle blocks and just placing them on the design wall, moving them around to see different patterns emerge. I eventually came up with a pattern I liked and filled-out the quilt with blocks as needed.

Add a monogram to the baby quilt with a phone app!

Now I had planned to use a monogram similar to the one in the baby’s room as a focal point for the quilt, but not being terribly experienced at using my ScanNCut2, I was also a little apprehensive. I was super excited to find the exact monogram on my phone’s Monogram It app!

Monogram It App
Monogram It App

Turns out, it was so easy to send this design from my phone to my computer and then to my ScanNCut2, I could hardly contain myself!

I cut the fabric, fused with HeatNBond Ultrahold and pressed it to the quilt. (Normally you aren’t supposed to sew through the Ultra, but I quilted around the edges of it to make sure it stood up to washings. I choose the Ultra instead of HeatNBond Lite because I wanted to be certain the fabric wouldn’t fray.)

Monogrammed Baby Quilt
Monogrammed Baby Quilt

I added an embroider label, quilted and bound the quilt as usual. I included a Shout Color Catcher with washing instructions for the momma.

This quilt was fun to make and I am really excited about the world of possibilities of using the ScanNCut2 in my future quilting and design work!

Let me say here that I am fortunate because from the start of this project, my friend said she totally trusted my judgement and

One Sophisticated Lady
One Sophisticated Lady

whatever I wanted to make would be great–not all projects allow you that freedom to let the design come together.

Next time I’ll make this quilt using BOTH beautiful sides of fabric!

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