Upcycle baby receiving blankets into meaningful memory quilts

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine asked if I would make a quilt for her nine-year-old niece who had a brain tumour and was awaiting surgery. Since my husband died from brain cancer 2 years ago, and I had made him a quilt to take to the hospital when he had his first surgery, of course I said yes. Then, she said she wanted it made from the blankets she received as a baby and asked if I could make one for her sister.

I researched making quilts from receiving blankets and didn’t come up with anything that didn’t still look like a baby quilt, so I got to work designing one myself. After the first quilt top was made and looked so cute, I decided that this would be the perfect project to share with you on QUILTsocial this week.

In January on QUILTsocial I shared with you 6 Steps to make letter blocks the easy way | Amour Quilted Banner using beautiful fabrics from the FABRIC CREATIONS Fabric Bundle (5pcs) – Summertime Paris – 45 x 53cm (18in x 21in) and two coordinating solids FABRIC CREATIONS 100% Cotton Fabric – Gray – 1.8 x 1m (2yds x 42in) and FABRIC CREATIONS 100% Cotton Fabric – Pink – 1.8 x 1m (2yds x 42″). I still have lots of these fabrics left, and pink is my friend’s niece’s favorite color, so I’ll use them again for these projects.

If you’d like to make your own quilt, here are the fabrics that you’ll need

materials

fabric

• 3 – 5 receiving blankets (depending upon their size)
• 27½” [70cm] gray fabric for blocks
• 51” [1.3m] pink (or teal) for blocks
• 16” [40cm] fabric for binding
• 9 – 12 fat quarters for backing
• 60″ x 70″ [152 x 178cm] quilt batting

Since the receiving blankets have probably been washed lots of times, it would be a good idea to prewash the other fabrics that will be used in the quilts.

As for choosing coordinating fabrics, I don’t usually do this, but for this quilt I’m combining flannel and cotton fabrics since I don’t have a lot of flannel fabrics in my stash.

1. Select your receiving blankets.

My friend gave me a bag of about 10 different receiving blankets that the girls had used as babies. The first thing I did was decide which ones to use for which quilt. I’ll be making two quilts – one with mainly pink fabrics and one with mainly teal fabrics, as these are the girls’ favorite colors.

I chose blankets that had mostly pink designs for the pink quilt and the ones that had mostly gray designs for the teal quilt. Most of the receiving blankets were flannel, but one was a different type of fabric, so I decided not to use it at all. One of the blankets had a leopard print and was a taupe color, so I decided to use it for one of the backings instead of putting it on the front of either quilt.

2. Cut the receiving blankets.

To cut the receiving blankets, first, I’ll decide which way will give me the longest strips of fabric, and I’ll fold them in half. I’ll line up one of the horizontal lines on my OMNIGRID Ruler – 6″ x 12″ (15.2 x 30.5cm) along the folded side and use my OLFA RTY-2/GP5 – Printed Handle Rotary Cutter 45mm to cut off the serged edge of the blanket. Then, I’ll cut each blanket into five 3¼” strips to get a total of 15 strips.

Every once in a while, I’ll square up the side of the receiving blanket by lining up the folded edge with one of the horizontal lines on the OMNIGRID Ruler – 6″ x 12″ (15.2 x 30.5cm). Since the receiving blankets have probably been washed many, many times, the edges will stretch and become distorted. I’ll just trim off that uneven edge with my OLFA RTY-2/GP5 – Printed Handle Rotary Cutter 45mm and then continue cutting my 3¼” strips.

3. Cut the coordinating fabrics.

Now, I’ll cut the fabric that I’ll sew to these strips to make the blocks. I’ll use two strips of gray fabric in each strip set, so I’ll cut 10 strips of gray fabric, each 1½” wide across the width of fabric (WOF).

I’ll use a pink flannel for the other fabric in each block. After washing, my flannel was only 39″ wide, so I’ll only be able to get three 10½” rectangles from each strip. I need a total of 60, so I’ll cut 20 strips that are 2½” x WOF. From these, I’ll cut 60 strips that are 2½” x 10½”. If your fabric is wider than 42″, you’ll be able to get four from each strip and will only need to cut 15 strips.

Now that all the strips have been cut using my OMNIGRID Ruler – 6″ x 12″ (15.2 x 30.5cm) and my OLFA RTY-2/GP5 – Printed Handle Rotary Cutter 45mm, tomorrow I’ll make strip sets and cut out the blocks for my pink quilt. See you then.

This is part 1 of 5 in this series

Go to part 2: How to make quilt blocks from strip sets | 5 easy steps