Southern Gal in Cal: A Bow for Clara

I like bowties, bowties are cool! - 11th Doctor

My cousins recently had little girl they named Clara. And whether or not they meant the Dr. Who tie, they'll be amused with my take on a baby blanket with some subtle references in it.

My very first attempt at real quilting was the baby blanket I made for their first child.
(Fun fact: After reading Little House on the Prairie when Laura made a nine patch quilt, my 9 year old self decided to make one out of scraps of cloth I had from projects mom had sewn. It was 9 squares and full of pieces of cloth for stuffing and just big enough to fit my baby doll, but I had sewn it all by hand and had never been prouder!)

Since I had made a baby blanket for their first born, I felt it necessary to make one for the second.

So here it is!

As always, I don't give instructions on how to sew, because I very rarely measure and mostly just do it on intuition.

With that in mind...

First you want to choose cloth!

To be honest, choosing the cloth is actually the hardest part for me. I usually spend hours, with an idea in my head, walking around with bolts of cloth and lining them up with each other.
I picked out this cloth last October, planning on having the blanket made by Christmas, but that did not happen due to unforeseen circumstances that took up a lot of my spare time prior to the holidays.

I usually buy 2-3 different patterns of cloth for the front side, about 1-2 yds each, depending on how many I get. I think I bought 1 yd of 3 of them, and 2 yds of the plaid. Then I find a cloth for the back and buy 3 yds. (That one isn't pictured above)

Sometimes I buy a pre-mixed back of quilting squares or a jelly-roll.

Then you want decide on a pattern. Simplest is still squares. I had an idea that I wanted to do a pattern with bows like this one here. But when I looked at the how-to on the bows, I realized that there were way too many corners to line up for my haphazard way of sewing.

I just realized that most people would probably pick the pattern first.... I looked at patterns before buying the cloth, but... In the end, the cloth usually comes first for me!

Very first step is the iron the ones that are crazy wrinkled. (You should iron all of it, but I'm lazy)

When you cut squares, the idea is that they should be the same size.

Then lay them all out in a pattern. Mom does it randomly, I'm a little more intentional with my pattern.

Then comes the tedious part. Sewing squares together.

It's important to keep the pattern right, and make sure the cloth's pattern is the right direction, too.

Then sew the strips together. If you measured, the corners should line up. Mine don't.
I pretend it's intentional. XD

If you are doing a separate design, you should be able to incorporate it as the main part of the cloth, like I did on the Tardis quilt I made. But you can also sew it on after, like I did for this quilt.

In the one I did for Tabby's baby, I used fabric glue and then stitched after it dried. Apparently, I never blogged about the Teddy Bears and Tutus quilt I made, so I put some pictures of it at the end of this post.

I ironed the top before I added the design, and I ironed the design to make it easier to sew.

Next is the batting and backing. Don't try to sew batting on by itself. Hot mess. Do both at the same time. It will bunch. My trick is one line down the middle first. Then go out from there.
This is the actual "quilting" part of quilting. I just did my "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" quilting on this one. (See the Tardis quilt post to understand this...)