House of Jen

 

 I wanted to make a quilt for my nephew's birthday.  I had made a quilt with Brian's ACUs (on a side note I will be making Ellie one, its on the list) when my oldest nephew was born, and realized I never made one for his brother.  So to avoid the second child syndrome, I knew I wanted to make him something special.  He loves Mickey Mouse (who doesn't?) I got the idea from my good friend Julie at the Lost Blue Bird, she made a strip quilt for Ellie when she was born.  She also makes a line of Michigan themed candles that smell great! They make the perfect gift, I believe she sells them on Etsy.  As seen in this picture of Ellie's nursery. It was made to match Ellie's room.  When I had usually made quilts in the past I used traditional squares or patterns that revolved around squares and if you ever quilted you have to make sure all the pieces are cut right and the seams line up or else the whole thing looks like a hot mess!  Problem solved with this quilt, NO Matching Seams!!  That what makes it quick and easy!  If you can sew a straight line, you can make this quilt.

 

I started with this great Mickey print  (All fabrics are from JoAnn's) then picked out five coordinating fabrics.  Brian helped to pick out the fabrics, he make sure they were not too girly.  I am really happy with the ones we picked, they go great together, if I do say so!

I got a yard of the Mickey print, only because the design ran the opposite way of the bolt, I needed a 1/2 of yard of the red, blue and white.  I wanted the yellow to be my border fabric so I got a yard of that. For the back I just used anti-pill fleece.  Its soft and washes and wears well.  I got a yard and a 1/4 of that.

 

To recap, that was:

 

1 Yard of Print Fabric

1/2 Yard of 2-4 Accent Fabrics

1 Yard of Border Fabric

1 and 1/4 Yard Fleece Backing

 

 



 Next I just started to cut strips, no measuring or science really.  Some wider some smaller, the only ones that were a certain width was to do with pattern, I didn't want to cut off half of Mickey's face.  When you do cut the border fabric, cut the thicker edges first, I ended up cutting 6 pieces (one for each side and then had to seam two together for the top and bottom, I wanted the seam in the middle so I used two pieces each)

 

 

Then I began to sew, just strip and strip. Start with a border and go from there, once its the width you want add the boarder.  Remember it can only be as wide as you fleece (or else you will need more fleece and seam them together)

 

 

Iron the seams, give the baby a bath....

 

 

Sew top and bottom border...

 

Next, place the fleece over the top of the quilt, so the fabrics are right side facing, Begin to sew up all 3 and 2/3 of the sides, only leaving about 5 inches open on one side to be able to flip the quilt right side out. (I usually pull all 4 corners out first) Machine or hand sew the 5 in gap together and your done!!