Elly-made's Gallery

Despite the lovely description on the quilt label, I had no intention of ever making Elly a rag quilt. It was all a happy mistake.

Hand embroidered by Quilted Lovelies

Last year while browsing around on the Etsy site, I found this pattern to make quilt from baby clothes. It was perfect for preserving all the clothes I had made during Elly’s first year. I had been dreading storing the clothes for 30 some odd years only to have a 50/50 chance that they would be used. What if Elly had a son or if she decided to not have a family at all? The clothes that I had so carefully stored would be thrown out. A quilt is such a nicer option.

Not wanting to buy new fabric for the background squares (I knew my MIL would be bringing me bags and bags of fabric when she came down for Christmas), I started to cut up Elly’s receiving blankets. Halfway through I began to doubt my decision. The receiving blankets were made of thick cotton flannel. The dresses I wanted to preserve were made of medium-weight cotton. The pattern instructed me to applique pieces of the dresses to the background squares. Layering the fabric like so would make the quilt terribly heavy, resembling a stiff interfacing rather than the soft blanket that I wanted to wrap Elly in.

It was then I decided to make a rag quilt. I’m so glad I did! It was fun and it allowed me to learn a new technique.

Rather than quilt simple X’s onto each block and you know actually finish the quilt in time for Christmas, I opted to teach myself how to free motion quilt. On Amazon, I purchased the book Quilt as Desired. Following the exercises given by the author, I quilted each of the squares. You can watch my progress in the pictures below.

I’m doggone proud of the last few blocks. I finally found my rhythm and my confidence.

This quilt was a joy to make! From cutting up the receiving blankets Elly had used as an infant to learning how to free motion quilt to fraying the edges, I was sorry to see it end.

Since I have no more receiving blankets to cut up, I have started saving Dan’s old flannel shirts to one day make another rag quilt.