We’ve been invited to a christening next weekend. I’ve known mum since she was born, I’m what I would call a courtesy aunt. I’ve made her a couple of quilts over the years, I think the first was when she was at uni, and another when she got married…

I know the quilts are much appreciated and loved so I decided to make a baby quilt as a christening present.

I needed something that was going to be quick to make so I decided to use a panel. I went to the Remnant House in Harrogate where they had a wide selection. This one appealed as it’s not too twee, she comes from a farming family, and a little bird told me the nursery is painted green! Mum also loves sunflowers, so it’s a win-win! It actually would work well as an I-spy quilt as the more you look at it, the more you see! I bought a length of linen look green cotton for the back and binding.

Annoyingly it was landscape shape and obviously I wanted it to be square at least, if not portrait shape. My original plan in the shop was to have a wide green border top and bottom, but having worked out how wide it would have to be I decided on a simple strip of squares instead.

I found some fabric in my stash which pretty well matched the colours. I cut 4.5″ squares and stitched a strip for the top and another for the bottom. I used the green backing fabric to make a narrow 1″ border all round. I was pretty pleased how it came out.

I had some leftover batting which wasn’t quite big enough, so I googled how to stitch it together to make what’s called Frankenstein batting! You basically put the two straight edges abut each other and zig-zag down the middle. I used the uncut edge on each piece so I knew it would be straight. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked!

I love seeing the quilts smoothed out when I make the sandwich…

For quilting I decided to do a simple meander, starting with a heart at the middle. I used a green variegated thread, the backing is green, same as the borders. My free motion quilting is improving but still is a long way off perfect! There’s a few wobbles where I’ve stopped for a rest or to change my hand position, even though I always stop with the needle down, it still seems to move.

As it’s not too big, I managed to quilt it yesterday afternoon, I then just had to bind it with the same green fabric. I stitched the binding on with the machine, it’s not as nice a finish as a hand-stitched binding but I think for children’s quilts it’s probably more robust.

All I need to do now is think of a name and make a label for the back.