Alex Blanket

A is for "Alex"

My daughter told me such a sweet story about her baby boy "Alex". His brothers have their own quilts that grandma made for them several years ago.. before little Alex was born... they use their quilts for more than to cover their beds.. TV/Movie watching, the beach, out in the grass, or just to snuggle.  "They love them".   I made their quilts in the same primary colors but I used a "Sports Theme"... 
My daughter told me about two weeks ago, "Now that her 3yr old can read his name, when the older brothers grab their blankets he looks sad and says, "Alex Blanket".  Gina gives him one blanket, then another, only to have him look sad and put it down saying  "Alex Blanket"...
Well that was my que.. Time for me to get busy and make "Alex his own Quilt".

The first order of business was to find the fabrics.. Primary colors are easy to find in any fabric store, but the sports theme was not... So knowing "Alex loves fish"", especially the "Octopus" ( he walks around the house waiving his arms pretending he is an Octopus)  I thought this to be the perfect theme for him.
I went digging in my scrap fabric chest and found some pieces of solid color flannel and used these pieces also.. cotton and flannel combined makes for a nice soft feel...

I know all of you "Quilters" out there will frown upon my method of cutting.. I don't do "cutting wheel" very well and I just measure the squares and cut with scissors, not doing a very good job of being perfect.. but it works for me...I'm not really good at matching squares in the perfect corners. And, I just sew the squares together in a hurried way..  I think I put in about 4 days time to complete this quilt.

Laying the fabric on the bed as I go along.. trying to evenly space the fabric designs.. (you'll notice my Rikki sitting on the bed very disturbed because "I took over her nap spot").

Once I had the entire piece finished I used the top design, twin size piece, then the batting, and the third layer is a flat 600 count sheet backing,for softness. I chose a sheet instead of muslin because of the price...On a good sale a sheet is so much cheeper then muslin fabric.   For the batting. I used, low-loft.  To make it easier for a little boy to be able to carry the quilt around.. not too heavy!

I then added my special touch.. so the boys, years from now, knows "Grandma made it".

 I used hand stitches around the name.. but then used the machine stitches to complete the quilting of the piece... It would be so much stronger and would go faster for me...  Alex needed his blanket in about two weeks, when he gets his 'big boy bed"... so, it's in the box and going in the mail tomorrow, and "Alex" will not feel left out when his brothers grab their blanket

A is for "Alex" and I'm linking up to

Alphabet Thursday