A Quilt Fit For a Cowboy

Thursday, December 8, 2022

I knew a friend of mine was having a baby boy, and she was decorating the nursery with a cowboy theme. I ordered the fabric and thought I had plenty of time to make the quilt - until the baby came a month early!

Patchwork quilt made with John Wayne cowboy fabric for a baby boy

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I got a 5" square pack of the "Go West with John Wayne" collection and a yard of Moda Grunge in the color "Primer." 

John Wayne precut and Grunge fabric

The collection has a great mix of colors, and the prints have boots, cacti, bandanas, and John Wayne quotes.

John Wayne fabric by Riley Blake Designs

It didn't take long to cut the Grunge fabric into 5" squares and a few 2 1/4" strips for binding.

Fabric squares cut and ready to sew

I used my design wall (a flannel-backed tablecloth taped to the wall) to lay out the squares. It's always a bit challenging to be random!

John Wayne fabric squares

I picked a brown thread from my stash for the piecing. This one is Aurifil 50wt #2370 Sandstone.

John Wayne fabrics and Aurifil thread

If you've sewn with a precut before, you know that sometimes the edges are "pinked," or cut with pinking shears to prevent fraying. You have to measure to see if the "peaks" of the cuts are at 5" or the "valleys" make the square 5". Since I was sewing mine to other 5" squares, I just centered one of the precut squares on top of one of the 5" squares I cut and centered them. For this precut, it seemed pretty accurate to line it up with the middle of the "mountains."

Lining up precut squares to sew

It took just about an hour to sew all the squares into rows, and then sew the rows together into a quilt top.

Minky fabric on my longarm

I loaded my longarm with minky fabric (I chose the color Moon Rock which is a gray, but also a tad brown). I've been using the SewTites Magnum magnets to load my backing fabric for awhile, and I'm loving them! SO much easier on my hands than my Red Snappers were!

80/20 batting

When I use minky fabric, I always use 80/20 batting inside too. It makes the quilt super snuggly and a great weight. 

Up close view of meander quilting on my Innova longarm

I chose a tan colored thread and quilted a medium-sized meander over the quilt.

Meander quilting

I can meander quilt pretty fast, so the quilting only took me about 30 minutes on this baby-sized quilt!

Prepping quilt binding

Next was machine sewing the binding on. (Tutorial HERE.) I used to not like binding, but now I call it the "victory lap," and I'm always excited to finish!

Binding a patchwork quilt by machine

I sewed my very last quilt label into the binding of this quilt too. (Of course I've already reordered more!) I really love these labels. They're SO easy to sew in when doing the binding!

Satin quilt label sewn into the quilt binding

The finished quilt is about 36" x 45" - a great baby quilt size!

Patchwork cowboy quilt for a baby boy

And the back is going to be perfect for tummy time and snuggles!

Minky on the back of a patchwork cowboy quilt

Patchwork cowboy quilt for a baby boy

Patchwork cowboy quilt for a baby boy

My friend and her new baby are doing great, and I was able to gift the quilt to them when he was just two weeks old. Still before his due date!

Patchwork cowboy quilt for a baby boy

This is my 35th quilt finish for this year, and my 443rd quilt of all time!

Patchwork cowboy quilt for a baby boy

I know this one will get lots of love and use! Welcome to the world, cowboy!

3 comments:

  1. I love this quilt. The John Wayne and the brown grunge is perfect. Easy but perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How does the Minky fabric fare on the long arm? I would think it would stretch too much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm using the same fabric for a quilt for my husband who is a John Wayne fan!!

    ReplyDelete

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