Patchwork | Jewels at Home

“DNA, you’re in my heart
DNA, in fact you’re in every part of my body
Each cell has a nucleus, each nucleus has chromosomes
And DNA, baby, that spells DNA”

-That Spells DNA by Jonathan Coulton

I can thank Steve, who is at the forefront of all things nerdy, for introducing me to Jonathan Coulton over a decade ago. Of course, as a genetic counselor, I have a particular soft spot for “That Spells DNA.” If you’re as nerdy as we are, and you don’t already know and love this song, you will want to check it out!

So, when we found out we were having a mini baby boom in our work family, with two babies due within two months, it wasn’t too hard for me to decide on DNA-themed baby quilts as gifts.

I found the DNA-themed fabric, Color DNA stripe by Melissa McCulloch, on Spoonflower. The fabric in the quilts is actually left over from a few Halloweens ago when our group dressed up as (if terrible puns cause you pain, skip this next part!) Gene-gnomes. The colors were a perfect jumping off point for this colorful gender-neutral patchwork of yellow, blues, greens and coral-red.

This pattern is called Stacked Coins and is easy to adapt to scraps of all kinds.

Here are some close-ups of the beautiful fabrics. I wanted to use every last scrap of the DNA fabric, so there is one patch in each of the quilts that I like to call “CRISPRed.” Can you spot one?

And here are a few more pictures of the quilts during their photo shoot, before they went off to their new homes!

All the colors and patterns together make me so happy! I am excited to meet the newest babies of our work family and give them their quilts, so they can start their genetics lessons early!

“Jewels”

Do you do this? We had several friends who had babies recently. I’ve been wanting to make something special, but I haven’t had the time, so the result of my best intentions is that I have not given them anything at all yet. Boo!

Well, I finally got motivated, because Lucas’ teacher is expecting her first baby this fall. She has been absolutely amazing. We were lucky enough to have her in pre-kindergarten and then again in first grade. She has that perfect mix of wisdom, energy, and affection that wins over parents and children alike.

I’ve sewn bibs before, but I tried something new this time, by making them wipeable. This is also a great project for using up those scraps of fabric that are too small to make a project on their own, but look great mixed together.

Materials:

fabric, including scraps
Thermoweb Heat’n Bond Iron-On Vinyl
Velcro

Instructions:

I created a bib template that is 17″ high (the width of the vinyl) and 11″ wide.

For the backs of the bibs, I used a single piece of plain fabric.

For the fronts of the bibs, I joined together two or three strips of coordinating fabrics into 11″x17″ rectangles and ironed on the Thermoweb Heat’n Bond Iron-On Vinyl according to the instructions.

I cut the template out of the joined and coated piece (pictured below)

Wipeable baby bib tutorial | Jewels at Home

Join together scraps of fun fabric to make 11″x17″ rectangles. Cut the bib template out from the joined piece.

I then sewed the fronts and backs together, right sides facing, with a half inch seam allowance and leaving about four inches open on the side to turn the bib right side out (pictured below).