Colorful Cross Baby Quilt (An Easy Way to Match Fabrics)

I make a lot of quilts with precuts, but sometimes I love to make a run to my local Joann Fabrics and whip up a baby quilt. I often spend hours wandering the aisles, looking for something (anything!) to match the fabrics I've already chosen for a quilt. Because as many of you may know, despite the amazing selection at Joann, it is hard to match enough fabrics to coordinate a full quilt. 

And so, my new solution. Choose one (just one!) key fabric. That's right, no twelve coordinating prints this time. Just. Choose. One. I went with a darling baby-themed animal print, which I used as my back plus one of my front fabrics. 

Now take your one print and match it color by color. Grab lots of solid colors or small-print fabrics that match just one color in your main fabric. I chose two oranges, a dark gray, a light gray, yellow, and two mint greens. Suddenly all your "random" color choices come together in one beautiful quilt! You can do this with any pattern, any color grouping. So have fun!

Fabric:

1 1/2 yards of main patterned fabric

1/4 yard (or fat quarters) of 6-10 coordinating fabrics

1/3 yard of fabric for binding

1 1/4 yard of quilt batting or flannel

Basic Instructions:

Cut fabric into 3 1/2" squares and 3 1/2" x 9 1/2" strips (2 squares for every one strip). Before piecing, lay out full quilt on the floor to be sure your strips and squares align properly. Sew in rows of square, square, strip. Once rows are sewn together, piece rows together into full quilt. Layer back, batting (or flannel), and pieced quilt. Pin, then quilt. I quilted each cross individually. Finish with binding.

Bunny Hill Baby Quilt

Baby quilts are one of my favorite sewing projects. They are fairly quick and give me a chance to get creative. This sweet little boy bunny quilt was actually leftover from a quilt I made 3 years ago. My friend had a baby girl in 2013, and she just had a baby boy. Hooray for matching quilts! Typically with a quilt like this, I buy one Moda Charm Pack, but here I used the leftovers of two packs that I combined. You can also just cut out squares of your own fabric scraps for the same look.

Fabric:
1 Moda Charm Pack (I used Windsor Lane by Bunny Hill Designs for Moda)
   --OR-- 48 5"x5" squares
1 yard all-natural quilt batting or light-colored flannel
1 yard of coordinating fabric for backing
1/3 yard of coordinating fabric for binding

Quick Instructions:

First, I sewed all the pre-cut squares together in rows of 8. Then I went back and sliced the rows in half longways to make the narrower 2.5" rectangles. Finally, I sewed the rectangles together in strips, 4 across by 8 down. I made three of these long strips total. Finally, I added a 4 inch white (or any solid color) strip between the patchwork strips. I quilted with a simple "follow the seams" style on all long-ways seams. Then I did a matching binding and we're done!

Be sure to use a large, flat surface to pin your quilt. I like to pin with curved quilter's safety pins.

Quilted, bound, and ready for baby!

You can see here I used a simple color-block pattern. When I sewed this I chose colors at random to make the quilt more visually interesting. The easiest way to do that is to put all the squares in a paper bag and draw at random. Then when I lay out bigger pieces, I just try to be sure like colors aren't touching.