Fruity Baby Blanket

One of my favorite ways to sew is without a pattern or even a clear idea of what something is going to look like when it is finished. This often has bad results (more in later blogs), but is always fun to do. Yesterday I finished a moderately successful seat-of-my-pants sewing experience that I wanted to share.

My friend Karen is expecting her third baby girl this summer, and while I'm sure Karen has lots of pink blankets in storage, I wanted the last baby to have something new and unique, too. Karen is a beautiful, peaceful, Godly woman, and also a painter and paper artist, so I wanted the baby's blanket to reflect her a bit. I decided to make her a Fruits of the Spirit quilt ("The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control." Galatians 5:22). I had once made a set of wooden blocks with a tree and the fruits painted on them for another baby girl in my life, and I thought it would work equally well in fabric.

The verse was free-form machine quilted in turquoise thread, and I machine appliqued wool felt and vintage chenille to form the tree using a free-form stitch for a sketched look. Then I machine quilted grass, and a few felt flowers for good measure. Topped it all off with some vintage cotton rick-rack and I think it came out quite cute!