Birthday banner

I've made over 30 of these fun birthday cake blocks!  It's designed by Lori Holt and she designed it to celebrate the first anniversary of her first quilt book, Quilty Fun.

You can see the post on her blog here. 

You can find the free block at Fat Quarter Shop here.

I add an extra 4" at the bottom of my block and appliqué 3" letters at the bottom. Then I add a 2 l/2" border around the whole thing. I outline the entire cake, plate and bow and then do staple quilting around it.

Here's a closeup, the background fabric looks like sprinkles :)

Here's Sabrina who will be 3 years old in a couple of weeks. Isn't she the cutest?

The banner idea is that it's put in a prominent place during the child's birthday month, so they can know that they are special!

Take a look at Riley's birthday banner.

Here is Kylie's, she's 11 years old now!

Here is Taylor's.

Here's a tutorial and Reagan's.

Here is Bridger's and Maisie's.

Here is Paisley's.

Here is Rebecca's and Isabel's.

Here is Charlotte's.

Here is Jacob's.

Here is Neo's.

That's about all I can find, but you see that I've made so many of them! Truthfully, I love choosing the fabric for them from my scraps, usually. They're fun to make for my children and grandchildren!  

Thanks for following and see you next week ❤️

Birthday Cake Banner

I have made so many of these birthday cake banners :)

This one is for Riley, my grand daughter will be two in June.

She has a soft, easy going personality, 

so I chose a pastel pink (soft color) for her cake.

It could be a strawberry shortcake flavor.

I bought this "sprinkles" fabric specifically for 

these birthday cake banners.

Here's a photo of Riley, she's my youngest grandchild.

I made a tutorial on how to make the birthday cake banner,

you can see it here.

Different cakes are here and here.  

These belong to Riley's three older sisters.

This is Jacob's and Bridger's & Maisie's banners.

These are cakes I made for a table runner,

and Charlotte's birthday cake banner.

A Celebrate cake and Neo's cake.

This is Kylie's birthday cake banner.

Rebecca and Isabel's birthday cake banner.

Kennedy, Lindsay, Lucy and Ben's cake banners.

This one is kind of hilarious!  

I took special care with Kennedy and Lindsay's, partly because I know they especially love color...

I was so proud of how they turned out but it wasn't until they untied the bow and hung it on the wall that I saw my mistake!!!

I sewed the bow and the platter upside down!!!!

They politely said they loved it the way it was and 

it made for a good memory :)

Well, I think that's it for the parade of Quilty Fun Birthday Cake banners that I have made for my kids and grandchildren, 

using Lori Holt's free pattern and making it my own :)

Thanks for following along!

Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banners

My daughter said she'd like a rainbow cake :)

This is what came to my mind, but maybe she meant layering the cake itself into rainbow colors...

This is the first time I've used a print for the background, I've always used Kona white.

It sure makes a different when I add the appliqué and the border!

I appliqued the names on with red Aurifil thread.

This is the first time I've tried "organic" machine quilting and I'm hooked!

You start at the middle top, and eyeball your way to the bottom.  

I move over 3 or 4 stitches and continue my way in the opposite direction.

The stitch lines are natural and uneven, just go with the flow.

Previously when I've machine quilted with vertical lines, they were all measured and straight.

I love the back too!

It's Rebecca's birthday today :)

Happy Birthday Rebecca!

My granddaughter Isabel turned one on February 11.

She is a gentle little girl, so I made her cake in soft colors.

The border doesn't stand out very well, I'm not sure what I was thinking about that!

The machine quilting is called "geometric".

I machine quilted from one corner to the middle and to the other corner to form a type of arrow head or triangle.

I did the same on the other side and the same on the top and the bottom.

From there, I shadow quilted.

The back is really cute with all the little cupcakes :)

I'm up todate on all my birthday banners for the year 2016.

Next year, I'll be making my two new grandchildren a quilty fun birthday banner for their first birthdays :)

If you missed it, I have a tutorial on Lori Holt's quilty fun birthday cakes, you can find it here.

Quilty Fun Birthday Cakes and more!

It's Kylie's birthday today, she's 3 years old! 

 I made her a Quilty Fun Birthday cake, the pattern is free at the

Fat Quarter shop's blog, the Jolly Jabber.

Kylie loves little cutie mandarin oranges, she can eat 5 or more at one sitting :)

I made her this cake banner for her birthday.

I also wrote a tutorial for appliquéing the letters and adding a border, you can see it here.

This is the back of Kylie's banner.

This is cute little Kylie today, on her birthday :)
She looks very grown up!

I made a mosaic of all the quilty fun birthday cakes I've made :)

I made one for each grandchild, Lindsay is my daughter, and "Celebrate" was created for Jordan and Kim, my son and daughter in law. 

(Kim reads my blog)!!! Thank you!

The idea is that each child will display their birthday banner for their birthday week (or month...), every year.

If you want to see the banners close up, you can just search my blog for "quilty fun birthday cakes", I've posted about them a lot!

The ones without names, I made into a beautiful table runner.

It's really long!

I have an update for a quilt I made for Christmas for my daughter, Vanessa.

You can see the finished quilt here.

As an update, here's Vanessa and one of her little dogs Walter, with her quilt.

Sometimes it's fun to see who the quilt that I've spent so much time on, goes to!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my creations :)

Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banner Tutorial

The Quilty Fun Birthday Cake pattern was designed by Lori Holt, of Bee in my Bonnet.

You can find the free pattern at Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber.

I went a step further, monogrammed the cake and turned it into a banner.

I'm thinking it's great for hanging on the wall and celebrating your birthday for a week or even a month!

I'm almost through making one for each of my grandchildren and some of my daughters :)

I've created a tutorial for the monogramming and banner.

My first step was to choose my fabric, one of my favorite parts!

I cut out all the pieces and labeled them with Alphabitties which I purchased at the Fat Quarter Shop.

I have two sets, and use them all the time!

There are quite a few half square triangles to sew, I like to use my Omnigrid ruler which I bought as a trio.

Well worth the price, I use them all the time!

My Pentel mechanical pencil helps me draw a nice, thin line.

Drawing a line on the square helps with accuracy.

After a bit more sewing, I have 3 sections of the cake completed.

It's like constructing a puzzle, one piece at a time.

My Quilty Fun Birthday Cake is baked, now it's time to monogram.

I'm baking this cake for my granddaughter Reagan who is turning 5 in November.

I know that purple is her favorite color, but a good purple is hard to find.

I don't have very much purple fabric, but I did have these fat quarters and am very pleased with them.

I added a happy pop of yellow for the cake pedestal.

I like to use Heat n Bond Lite.

 I cut a strip of paper 3 l/2" X 12 l/2", not intending to use the full length this time.

Reagan is only 6 letters and won't take up that much space.

My Heat n Bond paper is 3 l/2" wide, and I want my letters to be 3" tall.  

I used my omnigrid l/2" ruler to draw a l/4" line on top and on bottom, leaving me room to draw my 3" letters.

I drew the letters backwards, or reverse.

On close inspection, I noticed that the "G" wasn't backwards!

There we go, I just drew another one!

If you would like some templates of letters to trace, you can look here.

Cut a white piece of fabric 4 l/2" wide X 12 l/2" long, to sew the letters on.

Find the center of the fabric strip by folding in half and making a little crease with your finger.

Press the letters that are drawn in reverse, to the wrong side of the fabric.

Cut the letters out, on the drawn lines.

Whoops, I drew my "N" the wrong way!!!

That was an easy fix...no matter how many years you've been sewing, mistakes still happen!

Peel off the waxy paper backing and lay the letters on the white fabric.

Notice the center crease in the fabric that lets me see where the center is.

Aurifil 50 weight is my favorite thread to sew with.  

I have lots of white, but not many colors.

I think I'll use the lighter pink.

I machine appliqué the letters with a blanket stitch.

The monogrammed piece is ready to sew onto the cake.

I cut the borders of the banner from "sprinkles" fabric, perfect for little girls!

The side border pieces are cut first.

Cut 2 - 2 l/2" X 18 1/2"

Great, the side borders are sewn on :)

The top and bottom borders are next.

Cut 2 - 2 l/2" X 16 l/2"

Yay, the borders are finished!

I'm auditioning 2 fat quarters for the binding.

I don't want yellow or purple, I want the binding to accentuate the purple cake and bow, and yellow pedestal.

I think the plain light pink will work really well!

Here's a closeup.

I think the herringbone is too busy...

Unfortunately, the cute little print on the light pink won't show up.

I like to cut my binding strips 2" wide.

I cut 4 of them out of a fat quarter, 22" long.

This is the backing I'm going to use for my cake banner.

It's whimsical and sunshiny looking :)

When I quilt my cake banner, I stitch in the ditch along the entire cake, pedestal and bow, with my walking foot.

I'd rather not quilt over the cake, and stitching in the ditch makes the cake pop, almost looking textured or three dimensional.

I sandwich my banner with the top, warm and natural batting and the backing, pin it and begin quilting.

When I'm done with my jigsaw machine quilting, I trim the banner.

All trimmed and ready to bind.

I sewed the binding around the banner.

If you'd like to know how I do this, I have a tutorial.

Here's a closeup of the jigsaw quilting, and I don't quilt over the letters.

I like to use these Clover clips instead of pins, to hold the binding in place.  

I love hand stitching the binding, I find it very relaxing.

I finished my Quilty Fun Birthday Cake banner!

Here's a look at the back.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial.

If you have any questions, please email me.

I love comments too :)