Great-Nephew's Sea-Worthy Baby Quilt

the most recent quilt from my sewing room

One of my sister's daughters is expecting to give birth to her second child, a son, in mid-summer. As has been my habit over the past seventeen years for all of my children and those of my sister, I sewed a baby quilt for this newest family member. 

Usually I send the quilt shortly after the birth, but since Beloved and I are embarking on a cross-country move to the east coast in the near future, it was necessary I get this quilt done and into the mail sooner rather than later.

close-up of fabric and machine quilting

My niece requested a nautical theme (as did my niece-in-law earlier this year) and she sent me paint chips of the color scheme in their new home. (that was sooo helpful!)

In addition to her "Sand Beach" and "Embellished Blue"(Sherwin Williams #7529 and #6749 respectively), I took the liberty of adding a medium blue to the "Embellished Blue," and a tan and a dark brown to the beige "Sand Beach." Then just to make it 'pop' (as we quilters like to say), I added some aqua, which is a great color for sea themes anyway.

When I was creating the nautical-themed quilt for niece-in-law earlier this year, I was hard-pressed to find much water-sailor-boat fabric here in land-locked Colorado.

But just a couple of months later when spring fabrics starting showing up in the stores, all the nautical themes I could hope for were available in abundance.

We are taught in the quilting community to use both solids and prints, and those prints should be of varying sizes to add 'texture' (interest) to the project. The tiny polka dots, sea grass, anchors, lobsters and sea horses made all of that happen.

As for the quilting itself, I chose to do it myself this time, making absolutely straight lines of stitches diagonally in only one direction, consistently about half an inch apart. It was time consuming but fairly easy and immensely satisfying. This may be the best quilt I've made from start-to-finish in my quilting 'career.'

quilt front and back

My niece received the quilt last Thursday and immediately emailed to say she loves it. That was very gratifying to me.

With that said, this may well be the last quilt I'll make. The disability in my shoulder makes such projects harder as I grow older. My next-door-neighbor, a very accomplished quilter, was recently doing the machine quilting on a king-size project and made the comment that it was like "wrestling with an alligator." Yes, I feel that way, too, and even with smaller pieces.

I will probably restrict myself to table runners which take a lot less time and physical exertion. I love to make them for the various seasons and holidays.

Also, our next house will not have a fully dedicated sewing room because we are moving into some changes as we will be living closer to family members who will need a place to sleep when they visit us. Some of my sewing equipment has been given away and all of my fabric was donated to Fire House Quilts. But I still have the basic tools so I can mentor my granddaughters when they show an interest in this craft.

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