Tuesday, July 29, 2008

All About Buying A Baby Quilt

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All About Buying A Baby Quilt
Author: Scott Michaels -
The relationship between parents and newborn is very deep, especially with the mom as she conceives the baby for nine months in her womb. Parents like to buy all the baby items and baby wear available in the market. They like to see their baby look cute and comfortable.

The cloths for newborn should be comfortable and safe. The same applies to baby crib and bedding. Long, uninterrupted sleep is very important for baby's sound health. Comfortable bedding plays a vital role in achieving this target.

But baby quilts are not just for the nursery. They are just as home on the floor of playpen or dragged around during playtime, so serving many purposes. Baby quilts make unique gifts for baby girls and baby boys. A perfect baby quilt plays an important role in a nursery, since everyone's eyes are drawn to the crib as they enter the room. Your newborn will look pretty in photographs as baby quilt is the most photographed items during the toddler's years. So a carefully selected beautiful quilt is an asset for your newborn.

Since your baby will be spending over 60% of its first year sleeping, you should put much importance on finding the perfect quilt fabric. You must take all care to select the perfect material for your baby quilt. Baby quilts made with polyester or acrylic, which are plastics, can irritate your baby's sensitive skin and eyes.

Quilts for babies can come in a wide range of color and fabric choices, patterns and designs. Beautiful baby quilts come in all sizes and can be bought in a pair for twins or coordinated patterns and colors to allow for the frequent change that is often requited with a baby warm. Designed specially for the infants, these quilts keep the child warm, comfortable and cozy with a quilt top that is easily washable. Natural cotton, fleece and wool are the most popular materials for baby quilts. Quilts can be matched to the color of walls of your nursery or the baby's bedding or may conform to the chosen theme for the baby's room.

Quilts custom-sized to fit the baby's crib, bassinets, cradles and beds are available. Quilts may also be used as fun ways to teach different things to your toddler such as colors, name of animals, flowers and fruits and even alphabets. Hand-quilted baby quilts with sleeves for wall hanging rod look much like wall hangings and accents to the room décor when hung on the wall to dry. Trims, tassels and borders to the quilts look beautiful but one should make sure that they cannot be pulled out easily. Stitches should be short and close enough to avoid trapping the babies' fingers and there should be no loose thread on the edges for the baby to pull.

Article Source : http://www.articledashboard.com

A comprehensive guide to help you make a decision on buying baby quilts, baby quilt patterns, baby crib quilt, infant quilts, toddler quilts.

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A Tidbit of Quilting History Origins of Quilting

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A Tidbit of Quilting History – Origins of Quilting?
Author: How-To-Quilt Monthly Newsletter
Dear Internet,

You are receiving this ezine as a subscriber of amazines.com. These are excerpts from the How-To-Quilt.com Monthly Newsletter. You can receive the complete newsletter with your free subscription at: http://www.How-to-Quilt.com. We hope you enjoy these tidbits of quilting history and trivia, and decide to visit the site.

How-to-Quilt.com Newsletter May 2005

Some of us believe that quilting began in New England as an outgrowth of a limited, affordable supply of fabric coming from Europe. Others credit the Amish and Mennonites. According to Rachel Pellman and Joanne Ranck in their book "Quilts among the Plain People," quilting is an ancient art, dating back to Egypt, China and India. These cultures discovered the insulation value of layering three fabrics together, and created clothing using this technique. The Crusaders carried examples of this craft literally on their backs – as quilted clothing under their armour – and introduced quilting to England.

Lest we get carried away and deny the Americans their due, the combination of patchwork and quilting did merge in early America. While exquisite quilts were made in Europe, the hardships of the New World and the scarcity of fabric caused the women to become resourceful, thus patchwork quilts were created from whatever scraps of clothing, bed sheets, drapes, flour sacks, or any other thing that resembled fabric.

What's in a Name?

Early in the 1900s, as more women became interested in quilting and wanted to expand the variety of blocks they used in their quilts, they would write to magazines and newspapers for ideas. Publications would list the requests in one issue then publish the answers in the next issue. The blocks would be published with instructions and a picture. Often the blocks were renamed to sound more current or to give credit to a city or state, and one block would end up having several different names.

This month's featured block has only 5 different names recorded. What is interesting is that 4 of the names were given to it by the same source, Nancy Cabot. She has referred to this block as: Arkansas Star, Butterfly Block, Sea Star, and Star of the Sea. In addition, the Ladies Art Company referred to this block as Little Rock Block.

View a picture of this block and others featured this year at: http://www.how-to-quilt.com/patterns/blocks.shtml

Thanks to Maggie Malone's book 5,500 Quilt Block Designs for this information.

A Beginner's Guide to Quilting

Learn how to make a quilt using this easy-to-understand, step-by-step Guide, now available in convenient CD format, an electronic download from the website, or printed copy in the mail. Details are at: http://www.How-to-Quilt.com

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A Playtime Project The Memory Quilt

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A Playtime Project: The Memory Quilt
Author: Tricia Wellington

A friend recently suggested a use for my daughter's first wardrobe, which I've dutifully saved in the back of the closet, and lugged on two long distance relocations. Turns out she's done the same thing with her daughter's first clothes, and we've decided to make memory quilts. This playtime project preserves my little girl's everyday playclothes for no other reason than that they are hers.

Having been raised in a somewhat non-sentimental household, I jumped at the chance to engage in something that could possibly boost child emotional development at the same time that it provided a way for my daughter to feel connected to happy childhood events. I suppose it's my way of compensating for something I always wished I had. By the time I was born, the fascination with baby girls was past, and whatever I used and wore was handed off to Goodwill when I was finished with it.

The project lets you conserve storage space by cutting those favorite 0-3 month outfits into workable squares—or if you're an experienced quilter, you may feel confident experimenting with different shapes. I've never tried this before, so I don't want to complicate it with my perfectionist tendencies. I want to turn this into something we can do with our daughters—it always surprises me how young children can take to things that we assume are beyond them.

I went through the clothes to separate them according to "cuttability." Fearful of violating airline luggage allowances, and mindful of movers' square footage guidelines, I've unwittingly reduced the cherished collection little by little; this last relocation I was so desperate to conform to the rules that I left behind many of the pieces I had faithfully saved. Our having been in the Caribbean this past hurricane season further persuaded me to fork over even more of the little wardrobe to children whose homes (and wardrobes) had been destroyed. The pieces that remain are so few in number that I find I cannot bear to take the scissors to any of them.

And so the playtime project will consist less of quilting, and more of time spent sitting on the floor, arranging tiny high-tops, Mary Janes and workboots into shadow boxes. There's also the first jean jacket, overalls and the dress Little One wore to "school" when she was four months old. All of these are small enough to pass for doll clothes, and therein lies their preciousness. The rest are tiny crew neck sweaters, a little rain slicker, and the pajamas she wore in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit. These, with selected Boston Globe front pages will go into a trunk alongside the baby book (volumes I and II), the photo albums of the first years, and The Scrapbook; to be opened with great fanfare on some birthday after "we" have reached the Age of Appreciability.

Tricia Wellington

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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

A Brief History of Quilting

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A Brief History of Quilting
Author: tima
The art of quilting is not something new to this world, it has been around for centuries, but still there is no confirmation about the exact origin. According to the historians is that the history of quilting, piecing and applique was widely used for clothing and decorating stuff at home in ancient times. There is a common belief that quilting originated in China and Egypt at the same time. The oldest quilted garment found till now dates back to somewhere around 3400 BC.

Back in the 11th century, the crusaders picked up a type of quilting from the Middle East and brought it back to Europe. During that time, quilted piece of cloth was used by the Knights to give them extra cushion under their armor.

The Romans were the pioneers in introducing quilted bedding, which was used as mattress. Europeans got hold with this idea and they stuffed sack between two-combined mattress. It was in the 15th century when the Europeans found quilting as a necessity when they were troubled by cold winds in the winter season.

The very first quilts were made of few layers of cloth that was attached together with running stitches. Quilt Frames came into existence as it was difficult to stitch many layers of cloth together. Europeans, blessed with these frames started to create quilts that were more decorative, more finely stitched.

19th century marked a great period of quilting in Europe and America. People in villages would come together and make one or more quilts in an afternoon. Women were very pleased with this as they could come out of the boundaries of their home and could contribute in doing something useful.

For more information on quilts and quilt making, visit - Quilting Book

The author is a freelance writer associated with http://www.quilting-book.info

Article Source : http://www.articledashboard.com

The author is a freelance writer associated with www.quilting-book.info

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