Little Library Quilt

A friend of mine is a total book lover. When she told me that she was expecting baby number two I knew exactly what the theme the baby blanket was going to be: a little library. I got started on this back in November. Yes, it’s been a few months, but things happen, life changes and projects get put on hold.

I had the naïve thought that this would be a quick and easy sew because I wasn’t using a pattern to measure blocks with. I just had to put a book rectangle with a background rectangle and move on. It proved to be a little more involved than that. I wanted book heights to look good together, fabric to not be too much the same or contrast too much. Things like that ended up making it take a while longer.

I made a very ugly sketch to roughly go by. Make plans then change them seems to be my motto when I’m crafting.

That’s what I started with. Just a very basic plan.

I went to the quilt shop not too far from home called Mesquite Bean Fabrics. I found this word fabric and knew it was going to be my background.

It has fun words in that you don’t hear very often, but have really cool definitions like: ammil-the glittering layer of ice that dusts leaves, twigs, and grass after a freeze. Or psithurism-the sound of wind in the trees.

I started by pulling out a lot of fabrics that I liked together, but didn’t really have to match. How many bookshelves have all matching books? Maybe in the reference section, but that doesn’t make for a very cozy read or quilt.

Here are the fabrics I pulled all jumbled together in a chaotic mess.

They got so wrinkled on the move from The Netherlands to Texas. There was a lot of ironing involved!

I started with the book series on the bottom shelf.

I made the book face mostly in the same way.

Adding the background and a slanting book was next. I took meticulous shots of piecing the slanted book just to find out that I did it wrong and had to rip out, recut and do it again. I got it done, but it wasn’t a pretty process. I did mention how easy this was going to be without a pattern, right?

Anyways, moving on.

Next came the part that I thought I would just fly through. Adding in the pieces for a lot of books. No details, just a bunch of books. Turns out I’m not as easy going as I had planned and had to arrange and rearrange to figure out how I wanted the colors and heights to look next to each other. Yes, I should have known.

Next came Christmas and this quilt which was going along at a good little clip came to a dead halt. There were just other very important things to get done. Such as a very bored Little Bit needed something to work on. So, I helped her make the Hazel a gingerbread house.

We were able to go home for a couple weeks and see family. Not as much as we had hoped because for the first time in my memory the Olympics and most of Western Washington got a white Christmas! It was beautiful, but the roads were so bad I didn’t get to see much of my family. We did have fun though.

We all had a turn riding the plywood hooked up the tractor. Brother and Little Bit enjoyed stomping the iced over pond until they fell in. I had so much fun taking pictures of all the snowy mountains and fields and the house.

I found out over the trip that I had been hired for a new job. I had been applying everywhere and getting turned down everywhere due to not having experience with much of anything. Who really has experience logging cadaver parts for a training hospital? Apparently, someone out there does!

When we got back to Texas I was consumed with getting all my paperwork, clothes, and random other stuff ready for my going to work. At the end of January I got a message that the baby had been born. Oops! I got myself back into gear. Brother had to let me know that if I didn’t hurry up she wouldn’t be a baby by the time I got it done. Thanks for the pep talk, Brother.

I spent time most every Saturday working on sections and building the books.

I was in such a hurry that I didn’t take many pictures along the way, but you get the process. Book binding fabric, add details if wanted, add background, then sew together. I made each row of books to be 12 1/2″ tall and 28″ wide.

It was finally time to add the shelving.

Okay, so I ran into another problem. The background/wall color was too close to the bookshelf color to stand out and it all just blobbed together. Thankfully it was the outside that needed to be replaced and nothing in the middle. So out with the aqua and in with pink.

With the addition of the bookcase and background wall fabric the quilt measured around 38″ x 48″. I know it’s not the standard baby quilt size, but I’m pretty sure none of my quilts are, so why change now?

For the back I bought a fairy tale themed fabric. I ordered it from Amazon. It said it was cut to order. So, if you need two yards, you get one piece two yards long. That didn’t happen. My order was changed in my cart from one order of two yards to two orders of one yard each. Not happy. I sewed the two together the best I could. Goldilocks is missing a bit of her face, but it had to do.

I took it to Mesquite Bean Fabrics and had them do the quilting. Sister helped pick out the design. I can’t remember the name, but it has swirls with butterflies.

And, here it is all done and ready to be shipped off before the baby is in elementary school!

See how a little change of background made a huge difference?

Heres’ a little of the back.

So, with this blanket done I’m already thinking about my next project. I have a couple cousins and a niece all due within a few months. My mom takes care of the family baby blankets. I don’t compete with her. I’m thinking my bike needs a makeover. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading about my Little Library quilt. Have a blessed day!