Soft Blankie

Here it is, the soft blankie I made for newest member of the family Jaden Isabella.

I've been planning this quilt since mid-summer, I remember buying the "rubber duckie" fabrics before the run of Joseph The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was finished, because I showed it to one of my quilt gurus when she came up from Mid-Missouri to see the show. Getting started came slowly because I was pretty tired of the four walls of my sewing room after sewing all those costumes, but now it has been together as a quilt top for a couple of weeks. I needed to wait until Jaden arrived to embroider the vital statistics on it!

The theme comes from Jaden's dad and mom's theme that they like, Rubber Duckies!

Now that Jaden is almost 2 weeks old, I figured it was about time I finished it.

I used my simple pattern of 6 x 9 rectangles for the blocks. I embroidered on 5 of the blocks, and the other four were patchwork. I wanted it bigger than the 3 baby quilts I made in early 2008 using this same pattern and sizing, so I put a wider border on this one. This one ended up being about 40" x 50".

I changed my mind about how to finish the corners of the border. Originally I was going to put a square block in there, but didn't like the look. I had already cut the side borders off even with the bottom of the quilt blocks, so I had to add something to fill in. I came up with a rather complicated miter system, which caused me a lot of grief, and isn't exactly as precise as I would have wanted it to be. But my local quilt guru advised me to just forge ahead, saying that after it was quilted, you wouldn't notice that it wasn't as exact as it should be. I guess she is right. She also gave me more advise--NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! (Will I listen, probably not!)

The whole quilt rather sings out the whole first verse of the Rubber Duckie song, (Use Ernie's voice as you sing this!) "Rubber Duckie, You're the one, You make bathtime, so much fun, (and on the border) Rubber Duckie, I'm awfully fond of you!"

Hope Jaden enjoys slobbering on it, rolling on it, cuddling in it, carrying it, sleeping with it, and singing that cute little song for many years to come!