When I first found out I was pregnant, I immediately started thinking of how I was going to use her clothes in a quilt.
Would I do a square patchwork quilt? Would I make it big enough to use the graphics on the clothes? Would I make it small enough to hang on the wall? Surely, I wouldn't want to use such a quilt, right? What clothes would make the cut as special enough to save?
That last question was where I started. I decided pretty early on, within the first month, that I would only save the "monthly picture" outfits for a special quilt. Then, I didn't give it much more thought after that. I figured, at some point, the right idea would present itself.
And after a while it did. I was scrolling through instagram and came across the Down Memory Lane quilt by Aqua Paisley. I knew instantly that would be the pattern I used for my daughters first year mini. I filed the idea away until I had time to work on it.
Well....at the beginning of this year, my husband and I found out I was pregnant again! Suddenly, I felt the urge to finally get all the first first year projects done for our daughter (who is now two and a half). That baby book is also sitting unfinished. Oops!
I downloaded the pattern, grabbed the onesies from my cedar chest, and got started. Start to finish, this only took me a week. I had been in a quilting funk, and this was the perfect project to light that spark again.
I arranged the clothes in order from the outfit she came home from the hospital in to the twelve month photo.
I knew I wanted to frame this with a collage of the monthly photos, so I knew I needed to keep it small. Luckily, the hearts finish at 3" so the entire mini is a 16" square. The downside to the small size was the pieces were too small to include any of the cute graphics from the onesies. If I were to make this again, I would use the cut out the graphics and make a patchwork backing. Though, I'm not too worried that I didn't do that because the quilt is framed and no one would ever see it.
As a fun touch, I used one of the fabrics in her baby quilt as the backing. I love how the two tie together even if I'm the only one who knows it's there.
Instead of a traditional quilt binding, I opted for a faced binding. It finishes this mini quilt perfectly.
I used this website to have a 16"x16" photo printed. They had amazingly fast production and shipping. I think I had my photo within a week. (That's not sponsored or anything, I just had a good experience!).
When the photo arrived, I took everything to Hobby Lobby for framing. I cannot be happier with out it turned out.
We hung it at the entry to our stairs so I can see it from almost anywhere I'm sitting in our house (we have one of those open layouts in this house). I often find myself staring at it because I'm obsessed with it.
I love this as a keepsake as my kid(s) get older. I can't wait to make one for baby girl #2. Hopefully, I get it done before she is 2 and a half though. :)
