Counting Sheep Baby Quilt Pattern

Sew up a precious baby quilt for your newest addition with this pattern from Debbie von Grabler-Crozier. Using fat quarters in various shades of green to create the background field, this gender-neutral baby quilt pattern features a herd of appliqued lambs in soft white. This baby quilt pattern is a delightful gift for the mom-to-be in your life, so start creating your fabric flock before your next baby shower.

Designer Note: Seam allowances are all 1/4” and have already been added.

Materials:

• Fabric: (Note: All fabrics are from Art Gallery Fabrics).
  • 1 bundle green fat quarters for the background fields. Debbie used the Fern Edition Fat Quarter Pack by AGF.
  • 1/2 yd. brown solid fabric. The designer used English Toffee by AGF.
  • 1/2 yd. cream solid fabric. The designer prefers Crème de la Crème by AGF.
  • 2 yds. backing and binding fabric. Debbie has used Happy Plaid Vert from the Story Teller Plaids collection by Maureen Cracknell.
• Interfacing:
  • 1 1/4 yds. of #279 80/ 20 cotton mix batting by Vlieseline
  • 1yd. – 1 1/4 yds. Bondaweb (Vlieseline)
    • TIP: The amount of Bondaweb that you need will depend on your choice of lamb sizes. The combinations are almost endless!
• Clear drying glue suitable for fabric
• Coordinating threads for all fabrics and trims
• Scissors
• Fabric markers
• Extra feet for your sewing machine (darning foot, for example)
• PDF Templates – These are located at the bottom of this page. See printing instructions below.

PRINTING INSTRUCTIONS:

To download the PDF templates, click on the download button at the bottom of the page. We recommend opening your download using Adobe Acrobat.

Cutting Instructions:

TIP: When cutting the fields and the lambs, you have three sizes of lambs to choose from and the idea is to see which one fits best into each green field. In a larger field, you can get several smaller lambs or a medium and some smaller ones and this allows you to make your quilt completely unique. You have enough sheep fabric allowance to have a bit of a play.

From the green fat quarters:

• 1 field piece 15 1/2” sq. (field A)
• 1 field piece 15 1/2” wide x 6 1/2” tall (field B)
• 1 field piece 18” wide x 22” tall (field C)
• 1 field piece 12” sq. (field D)
• 1 field piece 12” sq. (field E)
• 1 field piece 10” wide x 14” tall (field F)
• 1 field piece 14 sq. (field G)
• 1 field piece 9 1/2” wide x 16 1/2” tall (field H)
• 1 field piece 9 1/2” wide x 9 1/2” tall (field I)

TIP: Label your fields with their letter because this will be important when putting them together in the right order.

From the English Toffee solid fabric (for the lambs):

• 2 legs using template I, II or III
• 1 head using template I, II or III

TIP: I have not given specific amounts for the lambs because it will depend on how many you want to use and in which combination.

From the Crème de la Crème solid fabric (for the lambs):

• 1 body using template I, II or III

From the backing and binding fabric:

• 1 piece 39” wide x 52” tall for the backing panel
• Bias tape cut at 1 1/2” wide and joined to make a continuous strip 160” long

From the batting:

• 1 piece 36” wide x 50” tall

Piecing Instructions:

PREPARATION:

The Applique Lambs:

1. The Bondaweb has a smooth (paper) side and rough (glue) side. Choose your lamb for each field based on the size of the lamb and the field and then trace the lamb pieces onto the paper side of the Bondaweb and cut the shapes out roughly.
2. Fuse these pieces onto the wrong sides of the relevant fabrics and then cut out exactly.
   
   
3. Tear the paper away and build each appliqué lamb onto a field using the template as a guide. TIP: Where you see a dashed line on the template, that piece goes behind another.
4. When you are happy, iron to fuse the appliqué into place.
   
   
5. Attach the appliqué motif to the field using your favorite technique. TIP: The designer chose a Free Motion Embroidery stitch this time but machine buttonhole stitch looks great too and if you want a lovely slow and relaxing make that you can take anywhere, you can embroider by hand.
   
   
6. Repeat for all of the lambs in each field.

The Bias Tape:

1. Fold your bias tape, wrong sides together along the length and press to obtain a center crease.
2. Open out and re- fold the long raw edges to that center crease and press again.
3. Re- fold along all of the creases, enclosing the raw edges and roll until needed.

MAKING:

Assemble the Fields:

1. The first three fields are the top left stack A and B. Sew these together and press the seams open. Add C on the right hand side.
   
   
2. Next are D and E, F and G. Sew the pairs together and press the seams open before adding the first pair to the second to form a square.
3. Field H and I stack together and go to the right hand side of the DEFG square.
4. Sew the top (ABC) to the bottom (DEFGHI) half of the quilt and press.
   
   

Quilting:

1. Lay the pressed backing fabric right side down with the batting centered on top of it. Place the pressed quilt top, right side facing up on top to make a quilt ‘sandwich’.
2. Pin well so that no movement is possible in any direction.
3. Quilt using your favorite design. TIP: The designer prefers a random diagonal wave to do this. It is very easy to achieve on a home machine and almost impossible to get ‘wrong’.
   
   

Finishing:

1. When the quilting is done, square up and trim and square your quilt.
2. Round the corners. TIP: This is easy to do; simply trace around an upturned coffee cup and cut out. It means no corner mitering!
   
   
3. Bind the raw edges with your bias tape.