Baby clothes quilt
 

Ok, I will try to explain this without a picture.

My cousin is wanting 3 quilts for Christmas made with her children clothes. But she wants them to look like they are just sewn onto a square. I have tried one square and it is just thick; I broke a needle! I feel the quilt will not be good to use due to the thickness and there is no way I can quilt it. Has anyone made a quilt like this? Did you cut down the side seam to look like it was all on there?

Does that make sense?

Thanks!

I would tie it and not try quilting it.

One of my friends had her's frame and not made into a quilt. Is there any way that you can cut the back of the clothes and applique the front onto a background fabric?? Just a thought. Good Luck.

I have seen these, and yes, they are just the front of the garment. So you would cut down the side seams and the backs of the sleeves. Cut so you leave a little bit more than half the front of the item so you can fold over the raw edges. I guess I'm surprised that you broke a needle. I can't imagine a baby garment that was that thick, unless she gave you snow suits or Oshkosh overalls...Tying is a great idea, or maybe sew some buttons on both sides.

Thanks ladies! The item had 3 layers (the sleeves were 3 different fabrics). I will cut the rest of the items down. And I didn't cut down the sides, so it was the whole outfit.

And I did figure I would need to cut enough to fold over, but all the pictures I found were just pictures, no "how I did this" so I wanted to ask.

I have done several and am in the process of writing a book on "how-to"....I have had the most success with trimming the baby clothing close enough to make it work properly; usually by eliminating the back layers if at all possible. I've only had one pair of size 6 mos. pants that the customer wanted left whole: they were hard to applique, but I did it. When I quilt them, I quilt around the applique but...if it's large, I come up with a design to go in the applique as well. And of course, all the blocks are usually squares with the appliques on them. After they're all put togther, I treat it as a "normal" quilt and put it on the long arm. I've not had problems with needles or thread breaking and the quilts look very good when completed. Hope this helps a bit.

A lady I know made one of these Baby Clothes Quilts. She cut up the baby clothes and made cute little templates, little dresses, kitties, heart shapes and other cute appliques. Because they were mostly knit fabrics she used iron on stabilizer on the backs of the appliques to keep the fabrics from stretching. It came out very nice and the lady receiving the quilt made from her granddaughters baby clothes was very happy with it.http://www.quiltingboard.com/attachm...d=496154&stc=1

baby clothes
 

I did this - cut them apart and used fronts. Then some appliques were so close to seams of clothes, I cut them out and appliqued on larger fabric. I just quilted SID as I didn't want to confuse with design. Good luck!!

This is the way I did two 6'x9' quilts for a friend from her daughrer's out grown clofhes. I also did aquilt for my daughter and myself this way from mt two grandsons baby clothes. I used various decorative stitches that are on my machine. I do not have any fancy embroidery machine . If you have any questions please send me a pmand I will be happy to help. The best background for the squares is any cotton fabric of your choice. My friend wanted hers super heavy so I used warm and natural for the background and the backing was flannel which I attached last and bound. My daughter's I tied in place of decorative stitches and it is my least favorite but it was my first one and was the only way I could think of at the time, it was a learn as you go project but she is very happy with it.

I would carefully cut just the fronts off of the outfits, turn the edges under, and then sew them down by machine. I saw a quilt like this years ago arranged like they were hanging on a clothes line. It was really cute. If you cut just in front of the side and shoulder seams, turning the edges under would be pretty easy, I would use the iron to crease the edges back, then use Elmers to glue on all the edgesto hold them down, then stitch using a 14-16 needle in case I ran over the glue so I would not break the needle. I posted a tutorial on "easy applique" you could use as a sort of guide to do this.

Thanks everyone! I have the squares ready. I did as most suggested and cut close to the back side seam and just folded it over. Looks so much better than trying not to cut anything. I did trim up the square once I got the clothing topstitched on. Tomorrow I plan to start sewing the squares together to get the top ready for quilting. :)