Baby's First Quilt: The Car Seat Quilt

I finally have begun sewing for baby and I am addicted. Especially because I have been able to play with a fabric that I have been hiding in my stash for nearly a year now; Riley Blake's "Little Matryoshka" fabrics! I don't know what it was about it that caught my eye last year but I am so happy to finally have an excuse to use it all up! And so I began by first cutting up my charm pack to create a car seat quilt!

I found this adorable pattern over at Moda Bake Shop: The Sophie Car Seat Quilt. The creator of this pattern, Jennie from Clover and Violet, solved an all too irritating problem that I was always having when my son was smaller. You have the car seat finally propped to a comfortable position on your arm as you are making your way into your destination when your little bundle of joy decides it will be fun to take a nice big kick and sends their blanket flying off the car seat. Suddenly you are stuck doing the most painful squat as you struggle to balance holding the car seat and reaching to grab the blanket up off the ground. Can you tell that we did this move quite a few times? And yet I never thought of creating a blanket that attached to the car seat. So I was more than excited to tackle this project!

I think the hardest part of this project, other than finally cutting a fabric that I love, was picking the perfect layout. 

Once I got through that part, I had no problem finishing this quilt. 

Once it was basted I got to the quilting. And sticking to my goal for 2014, I decided to continue practicing free motion quilting with this quilt. It was nice and small which made it easier to manuever through the machine so it made for a great practice piece. For this I decided to go with hearts and loops all over. My lines are still not perfect but I definitely was feeling a little more confident after this project.

I also decided to add a little free motion word to the bottom corner of my quilt to let my baby know just what I think!

Once it was done it was time for the binding and then attaching the straps. Now the original pattern called for long 28 inch straps for tying onto the car seat. While this was a great idea, I am not comfortable using long strings around a young baby (especially since I am hoping this blanket could be used not just on the car seat but if baby falls asleep while we are out and about, or if we need a blanket for playing on while traveling). So my next thought was velcro. But then I shivered at the thought of waking a sleeping baby with the sound of velcro pulling apart, I knew I needed a quieter option. And then I spotted some snaps in my stash of sewing notions. 

As you can see in the above picture, I added a third strap at the top center of the quilt that was not called for in the pattern. I love using a blanket to keep the wind out of baby's face when running errands but again, it would tend to fall directly on baby's face. No good. So this was the perfect solution for keeping the blanket up and over the baby without falling on baby!

I am so pleased with how this turned out that I may just have to make one more to add to the rotation when we are out and about. But first, I am going to continue playing with these beautiful Riley Blake fabrics to create a crib quilt. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Until next time . . . happy quilting!