Baby Floor Quilt

I started making floor quilts for babies when our daughter Grace gave birth to twin girls in late 2022.

By this time in Canadian-motherhood history, newborns were not supposed to have any loose bedding (like a quilt) when they slept, and were supposed to wear sleep sacks.

So our twins wore sleep sacks until they were well over two years old.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Babies are put down on the floor for tummy time, and a nice clean soft surface like a quilt is very welcome. The floor quilt in this post was made for a friend of our daughter April, who is giving birth in September 2025.

I use black and white grids or patterned fabric in my floor quilts, because I read long ago that these black and white patterns confuse the evil eye and are often used as protection when placing young children onto the grass.   

Another practical gift for newborns are small flannelette pads for diaper changing or burping or sofa cloths.    

I made a set for Em J, April's friend.

I promise to put up some images of the floor cloth I made for the twins soon.

2025  

Quilt number 116

Two more baby quilts

Two more baby quilts from the 80's.   These are made with the flip and stitch method on the machine.  Each string block sewn and quilted at the same time, and then joined at the back with bias tape to make a grid on the second side.  

The top one is pastel solids, the bottom one has polka dots.

I taught this method in a couple of Canadian Quilt conferences in the early 90's.  

These were given away to friends as fast as I made them.

I hope that they were used.  

1988

Quilt numbers 115 and 116

Baby quilt for Suvi

A pinwheel quilt for Suvi, cotton and silk, hand pieced and hand quilted, 43 x 43 inches.  I chose the happiest fabrics I could find with lots of dots and stripes, and the happiest pattern I could think of for this joyful child.  The third daughter for my son Jay and his wife Erika.  

It took two years to hand piece the very small pieces into the fiddly pinwheel pattern.  I took it with me on trips over through 2023 and 2024 as it was easy to pack a baggie of the small ready-pieced hst's (half-square triangles) in my purse.  The border was made twice, because the first one stretched when I sewed it to all those seamed pieces.  It seemed to work better when I used the applique technique instead.   

The back is a giant pinwheel embroidered with Suvi's complete name.  Suvi Selina Ruth Martin along with my name and the date of her birth in 2020.   

I gave it to her on her 4th birthday, which was also her daddy's 44th.   Suvi was delighted to open the parcel.  "It's a Quilt!  Grand mom finished the quilt!" she exclaimed.  

july 2024

Number 114

2024