A Boat for a Boy

When my new grand-nephew was born last month I was delighted to have an excuse to make my first ever baby quilt. Having held off making anything until he was born to be sure of getting the fabric selection right, it needed to be something relatively quick to make up.

Fortunately I found the perfect pattern in the Spring/ Summer edition of Fresh Quilts. The pattern, by Gudrun Erla, was actually for a wallhanging but I reasoned that it would also be ideal for a baby quilt.

Image of What does the Fox say? from Fresh Quilts Spring/Summer 2014

The original pattern in the magazine shown above was based upon a fabric line of woodland animals so had a fox applique. I have, however, been hoarding a FQ bundle of Thomas Knauer's Seagull Flock fabric for a very long time since I bought it with a Fat Quarter Shop voucher won in a giveaway many moons ago. This was the perfect opportunity to liberate the bundle from my stash cupboard!

The QAYG technique I mentioned in my previous post was a revelation. I took longer to work out the fabric placement than it did to actually make the quilt!

Basically the blocks were pieced into strips and then attached together and quilted to the wadding and backing in one step. I was a bit worried about keeping my lines straight on the diagonal but it worked out fine.

This is how the quilting looks from the back, it is perhaps more minimal than I might otherwise have done but it would be easy to add extra quilting as each strip is added.

The backing fabric had also been lurking in my stash for a while as it was a lucky find in the fabric bins at my local Abakhan store when we lived in Riga. I was delighted when I discovered that I had more than enough of it to back this quilt.

With the seagull theme of the fabric the applique had to be a boat! I shall not embarrass myself by telling you how many times it took for me to get the fusible web applique sails the right way round though :) Let's just say that I was very happy when I finally got it to work!

The stats for the quilt are;

Pattern by Gudrun Erla in Fresh Quilts Spring/Summer 2014
Fabric       Seagull Flock by Thomas Knauer for Andover Fabrics
Size          35" x 43"
Quilting    QAYG


It is what feels like my first for a long time Friday finish too, so I am linking it up to
  Crazy Mom Quilts