Quilting for Baby as a Home Business
by Jan
A quilt is more than layers of cloth; quilting for baby is a labor of love PLUS it can become a home business. For centuries moms have been making crib quilts that served both to keep their infants warm and cozy and demonstrate their sewing skills.
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Scraps of fabric were stitched together to form the "top" that was then combined with padding and a back to form a "sandwich" that was then secured with either a stitched pattern or tied at regular intervals with thread or yarn to keep all of the layers in place.
Modern moms quilting for baby often have stashes filled with fat quarters of gorgeous fabrics in bright colors as well as free patterns for beginners as well as those with advanced skills. With a few clicks of the mouse, a seamstress interested in making a baby quilt can find baby fabric and a pattern that will personalize store bought
baby bedding and inspire lots of
baby nursery ideas that expectant parents decorating a room for the little one will appreciate and be more than willing to pay for!
Some moms start quilting by hand and then move on to machine quilting or even do both! If you love and admire antique or vintage baby quilts and feel that your customers share your taste, hand-quilting is for you. It's a slower, more relaxed method that certainly is more time consuming but the result is a quilt with a timeless quality that no machine can possibly duplicate.
However, at some point you will most likely find a use for machine quilting. You can make custom sets of
quilted baby bedding fast with home quilting systems which makes this method better suited for commercial sewing.
But there are many more types of quilting than hand or machine quilting and patterns of all kinds. For instance there are:
- African quilt patterns
- Autograph quilt blocks that feature embroidered signatures of everyone that contributed a block
- Amish Quilts
- Baltimore album quilt patterns
- Bargello quilt patterns
- Charm quilts
- Crazy patchwork quilts
These names refer to the design of the quilt top. There are also various terms used to describe the actual pattern of the quilting or stitching used to hold the layers together that can be just as unique as the shapes stitched together to form the top. For examples there are:
- Clamshell Quilt Patterns where the quilting design resembles the scales of a fish
- Free Form or Free Motion done by machine has no definitive pattern
- Quilting in the ditch refers to the practice of stitching in the seams
- Traditional quilting indicates that the stitching takes place 1/4 inch from each seam
- Design Quilting can be created in shapes drawn by the quilter or the pattern can be stenciled using a template and then quilted. Medallions with elaborate feathered borders or flowing borders are very popular
Modern moms don't always have time to invest in intricate patterns just for fun. So why not turn your love of sewing into a home business and sell your work?
One lady I know started out
quilting for baby and now runs a thriving shop on Etsy and Ebay! As the old saying goes, "Love your job and you'll never "work" a day in your life!"