I had a three-day weekend over Martin Luther King Day, and wanted to do something special! I haven't done a lot of sewing in the last couple years (at least, I feel like I could be doing more, based on the amount of fabric in my closet), so I decided to use up some of my stash and make a small crib sized quilt. It's a pretty simple design- I figured out the width of the blanket, and what widths of fabric strips could comprise the width of square. I then made several very long strips, which I sewed to each other to make one very long 18" wide rectangle, and cut it down at 18" intervals to make squares. I turned a couple squares, and voila! I used about half of twin-sized sheet to make the flat back, and stitched yarn ties in rows along the widest strips (which, yes, still need to be trimmed).
I took a quilting class last fall, where I had someone show me how to make a binding at home, and how to miter the corners on the binding-one of the more valuable things I learned in class, as reading about it in books was not working out for me! This was the first time after class I attempted my own binding, made from the same sheet as the back fabric, and mitered corners, as well as hand-stitching the binding on the backside (I really had no idea what I was doing with factory-made binding, and am inherently lazy- the easiest solution was to machine sew both the front, and then the back). I am so glad I learned that! The binding on this quilt turned out miles ahead of the binding on any other quilt project I've done before.
