Quilt from baby clothes

[Bellendula]

Hi, I would really love to make a quilt from all the baby clothes that I have kept as it would be a better way to keep them/look at them than them just sitting in a drawer! I am reasonably handy with a sewing machine. Has anyone else done this? Is it a good idea or a potential nightmare? I am struggling with the thought of cutting up the clothes but they won't be worn anymore and it feels like it'll be a lovely way to display them. Any advice/tips? Thank you x

I would practice with some other fabric first so you don't risk the precious baby stuff on your first attempt. It requires patience!
A friend at my quilting group made a quilet from her three DD's dresses. It's a real heirloom.
See if you can find a quilting class or group near you, failing that YouTube but be aware that quilting is very popular as an American craft so very few Brits and the terminology is different.
You can make scap quilts, or cut the fabric into squares. You also need some backing fabric and wadding.

Very good point about practicing on spare fabric!
Your friends quilt sounds lovely, heirloom is the idea I'm going for. I'll check out You Tube, thank you for your reply.

Aw I’m saving clothes for this too 😍 I’d say make a couple of jelly roll quilts first (jelly roll jam is a good one) and I’m planning on sending my quilt top out to be quilted with a long arm machine as I think I’ll end up with quite a bit one.

Also have seen some nice patchwork teddies made of clothes too 😍

This is such a lovely idea. I'm giving away a lot and selling some but the most precious and wondered how to display them.

My mum makes quits and its taken years of courses and groups to get to the level she is. Definitely recommend practising on fabric you don't care about first. Could you contact a quilting group and ask if someone was willing to make one for you? They will probably charge but at least you will have a high quality air loom.

I had mine made for me. I didn't trust myself to do it justice. It was worth every penny.

I had this elephant made from my grandsons babygros. A gift for his parents. I’ve got the scraps that were left and would love to make something small from them but I’m useless at sewing!

I used DD’s baby clothes as one of my first ever patchwork pieces and now she’s 17 I’ve made a lot of progress…
I’m putting technical terms in inverted commas so you can Google them.

Looking back at it I realize I made a lot of “colour matching” mistakes and used a huge 1cm “seam allowance”. Real quilters use a quarter of an inch! In spite of all its flaws it’s got a lot of sentimental value.

I made it as a single duvet cover (150x200 cm) and the “backing” panel fabric was the same fabric I used as “sashing”, to pull the colours in the scraps together.
I made “nine patches”, so five dark and four light squares or vice versa. They were 15 x15cm, but smaller would be prettier. Try centering or “fussy cutting” the square over a special motif on the baby clothes. Some of the patches have the middle square with a cross-stitch motif of a bow in a matching colour.
Then I added sashing and “corner squares” and a frame in the base fabric to bring it up to duvet cover size.

I never got around to “long arm” quilting it but it would be easy to sew it up at the bottom and hand “tuft” it. As a duvet cover it’s just more versatile to switch from summer to winter weight.

My advice is to use iron on interfacing for all the fabrics which stabilises them (so the material doesn't stretch out of shape) and to cut all the pieces the same size to make piecing it together more straight forward.

Other than that, it's pretty simple to make the quilt front. The actual quilting process and be a bit more tricky depending on the size and the machine you have.

I've made a few baby clothes quilts for friends but it got too time consuming... I am keeping my dc's clothes for one though... I interface and cut pieces as they grow out of clothes so I have a box stored with all the squares to sew together one day when they're all grown up!

Sorry, it’s “corner stones”.
This YouTube channel is great for ideas and free patterns, or Missouri Star Quilt Company.