Baby Patchwork: Small Quilts & Other Gifts

by Gianna Valli Berti

Every baby should receive a special gift, handmade with love. With these simple and innovative quilting techniques -- some using tracing paper as an easy guide -- you can create beautiful, cozy blankets with adorable yellow ducklings, blue bunnies, plaid pinwheels, flowers and lace, little houses and trees, carriages and toys. One even has a small pouch where a tiny teddy bear can fit snugly! There's more than just coverlets: stitched up a baby carrier that can be in gingham to keep a little one snug on an outing; a pouch with embroidered kittens for bottles and diapers; bibs featuring a red rocking horse or holiday designs; a pretty-in-pink dress; and a special "first" table setting that's sure to make feeding time fun pillows, floor mats, and garlands to brighten up baby's room. And if you need the basics, all the necessary techniques from measuring to cutting to sewing to pressing are covered.

Genres: Quilting

176 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1991

Reviews

[Judi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I have been making and completing more baby quilts than anything else, this was a natural for my quilting library. Instructions and patterns to make 28 projects but that is just the starting point with this book. There are probably hundreds of ideas with photos of projects, graphs, quilt designs, and alternate projects using the patterns in this book or designing your own. Beautifully photographed and presented, this book could keep the dedicated sewer and quilt maker inspired to make many projects. I wish they would have included the instructions for the fabric wreaths.

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baby Patchwork / 0-8069-9933-0

I own quiet a few quilting books, and they tend to all cover a lot of the same common ground - use rotary tools for cutting, sewing machines are nifty, thimbles prevent massive internal bleeding, and so on. This book is no different in that regard, so I'll just note that this one covers the basics well, before moving on to what sets it apart from all the other quilting books.

First of all, the book is very pretty and modern. The page backgrounds exude a crisp, clean, shiny white and there's not very much of the "country quilting" motif here. Definitely, the editors were going for a "not your grandmother's quilting resource" here, so if you like "modern" quilting books, this one will definitely catch your eye.

Second, there's a surprising amount of new ideas here. The quilted braided wreaths are great, and provide a new way to display your craft on the wall besides the standard "quilt on a wall" design. (And they're a great way to make something cool with very little material needed.) There's some decent gift bags here, and plenty of small quilts, and believe it or not there's a quilted "cake" to trot out on birthday occasions. I'm not really sure who would prefer a quilted "cake" to a yummy, messy confection, but it's cute and different.

I recommend this book if you can get it at a decent price. It's got some new ideas in it, and the presentation is certainly very clean and crisp.

~ Ana Mardoll