A quilt's not just for Christmas.....

We have three girls and a boy, which when giving gifts can be tricky. It's easy to give the girls similar things but sometimes hard to find something that suits all four children. I like to make them all a gift at Christmas and last year I made them all rolls ups, make up and stationary ones for the older girls and pencil ones for R and MB.

R's pencil roll in marble fabric

Special button fastner

One for pens and pencils..........

 and one for the handbag

All four children already have cushions so that wasn't an option for this years gift. Our girls all love writing lists and keeping journals so it was easy to choose a notebook cover for them, but not really suitable for R. Maybe when he's older, but not now.
For ages now I've wanted to make a quilt, so I decided that the girls would get their notebook covers and R would get a small simple quilt. Being the 'odd one out' might have benefits after all!
I had a brief chat with my friend N about how I planned to go about making the quilt and she gave me a couple of tips for finishing, which I was grateful for.
I had in my head the design for the quilt, simple squares in rows and offset so that I didn't have to worry too much about lining everything up perfectly. I used a fleece blanket for the backing, meaning I didn't need to worry about wadding, like I say, nice and simple.
I bought some pre-cut novelty 5x5 inch squares and hand cut the rest from fabrics I already had. The backing fleece was red, R's favourite colour so I decided to edge the patchwork section in red cotton that I had left over from making his cushion. Once I had all my pieces together all I needed was a quiet day at home.
When that day came I sorted the squares into rough colour groups and set about laying them out into a pattern I was happy with.

Almost the final design......

I laid all the squares out on a fleece blanket until I was happy with the pattern. The middle section was ten squares by six squares. I sewed each strip of ten squares so that I now had six strips. Each time I sewed a strip together I put it back in it's place and moved onto the next set of ten squares. Once I'd done them all I offset the strips so I had a brick like pattern. I pinned the second strip to the first to sew them together, then when I came to do the third strip I made sure that the squares from the first and third were lined up.

I lined up alternate rows

Once they had all been sewn together I joined a border in plain red cotton. I don't mind admitting that I did give a little squeal of delight once the front was finished, it actually looked how I had hoped it would!
I pinned the front to the new red fleece blanket, face down and sewed round the edge leaving a gap for turning. Once turned (I was very pleased at this point) I stitched round the edge to close the seam and then round the edge of the patchwork section and decided to leave it at that.

The quilt had taken me four and a half hours from start to finish, not including cutting the fabric and without any breaks, As I went along and could see it growing, I simply couldn't stop. For so long I had wanted to try making a quilt, but I really wasn't sure I could do it.

The fabrics included are some I've used before, like the marble and football prints, some that I saved from my Mums house, various novelty ones with bugs and creatures on and two Christmas themed squares, just in case he ever forgets when it was he got this quilt.

Folded ready to be wrapped

I was very pleased with it (can you tell?) It's the perfect size for R. Big enough to go on the end of his bed, for him to snuggle under while he watches a movie or if ever he's poorly and when I finally got to give it to him on Christmas day, despite all his other gifts, he says this is his favourite. Now I'm just wondering how long it will be before the girls ask if they can have one!
It's made me realise I need to 'have a go' more. Maybe the girls will finally get their comfy pants they've been asking me to make for months, after all I've had the fabric and the pattern for ages and now I have the time.