Baby Quilts

I really love all the different kinds of baby blankets there are. I like making them, I like getting them, I like giving them, I like wrapping a sweet baby up and snuggling with them, I just like everything about baby blankets.

If I'm making one for a gift I usually do something like this:
It's 2 pieces of flannel, 1 yard each with the only decorative stitch my machine does around the edges. It's the perfect size and weight for swaddling up babies (and I love to swaddle up babies).

But sometimes I'll do something a more involved, like this:

I made this for my neighbor Heidi and her baby Alice. I love this fabric. I was finishing it up the right before Heidi's shower when my embroidery foot (which is a special order piece) broke on my machine. I only had about 8 inches to finish stippling, so my husband saved the day by holding the broken part of the foot in place with his finger 1/4 of an inch from the rapidly moving needle while I finished it.

Before Austin was born I did this quilt to match the crib skirt and bumper I'd made:

The brown fabric is kind of like satin and I get tons of comments on this quilt - it's very cute, if I do say so myself.

My friend Jenee' made this fun rag quilt for me and I love the bright colors. It makes me happy every time I see it.

My favorite baby blankets are the ones from Derek's Grandma Betty. She has done one for each of my boys, as well as all the other great great children in the family and she hand pieces and quilts each one. They are amazing. She wrote in a card for Chase that after all those thousands of stitches she's always a little sad to part with the quilts. I would be to!

Here's the one she made for Bryce (the first great grandchild) while she and Grandpa Jimmie were on a mission in Mongolia where Jimmie was the mission doctor. It's a traditional Mongolian pattern:

Here's the one she did for Austin:

And here's the one she did for Chase:

Every year Betty does more quilts for new babies being born into the family, so you'd think they'd be getting smaller in size, but Chase's is the biggest of the three. Some of the same fabric is in Chase and Austin's. Part of me doesn't want to use them so they stay in perfect condition, but I know that's not her purpose in making them, so we use them. Bryce and Austin really love that they each have their own and Bryce kept trying to get me to say whose my favorite was. The answer: All of them!