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Monday, October 6, 2014

Fun Baby Blanket REDO challenge!



My Mom's cousin Joyce asked if I could take her SON's baby blankets (from when he was a baby) and turn them into something NEW. ...
 SURE I said!  I will be happy to give it a shot!!  ;c)
He is getting married soon,  and Joyce gave this finished quilt to her son at his wedding shower.


The blankets have been washed many many times, stains, giant holes, weak and shredding fabric.  Also, the colors in the blankets don't exactly MATCH, so to say this was a challenge, would be an understatement.  . . a FUN challenge though!   Take a look at these 4 baby blankets and think . .what would YOU do ?  How would YOU fit them together?   How would you go about it?  
I am really happy with how this quilt turned out - and I feel that I breathed NEW LIFE into these blankets, and now they will last another 3 decades!  (at least!)


 I decided that I would make a RAG-style quilt.  
The troll doll blanket is actually a quilt.   The back of this blanket is a panel that is made up of large troll dolls.  The original quilt maker cut out the trolls from that fabric, and hand-appliqued them onto brightly colored solid background fabrics.  The hand applique is gorgeous!  She also hand-quilted the 3 layers.  I wanted this blanket to be the "star"  So I started with the troll blocks, and then worked around them.
I noticed that the polka dot blanket had similar colors.  So I made similar size blocks with that blanket.  I took the remaining two blankets and made 4-patch units.    And a large center block because Joyce's son loves elephants.
 I measured the troll blocks from the original quilt, and they varied in size, but averaged 7.5"
I typically want at least a 1" seam allowance for a rag quilt. . but I decided that for this quilt that I would do a 0.75" seam allowance and use a 6" finished block  (7.5" UNfinished).  
 HOWEVER, If I cut the blocks out exactly as they were in the original blanket, some of the trolls head and feet would be gobbled up by the seam allowance. So I utilized the blankets borders, and cut into the center blocks so that I could keep most of the troll in tact!    That's why you see more than one color in some of the troll blocks.
The back of the quilt is NOT so pretty ;c)  But you can see the awesome original troll doll fabric on the back. 

Here's a closeup of the center of the finished quilt.    This photo shows off the strong diagonal movement with the lights and darks.  
Side-by-Side of the blankets and the finished quilt.  

So...
What would YOU do??  
I would love to know!



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