Baby quilt for friend's nephew (Seahawks, kind of)
 

A friend asked if I'd be willing to make a couple quilts for her brothers (both having babies, one boy, one unknown).

She sent me a photo of a quilt she liked, but was hoping I could use a few pieces of Seahawks fabric, along with whatever I had in my stash to match. I bought some licensed fabric in three colors, and then dug out whatever lime green and navy blue I had. I went through squares from the I-Spy swaps and found a chicken (she raises chickens, so thought it would be a special touch). I told her if I could add a little yellow, and maybe some purple, I could sneak that chicken square in there. She said anything but pink :) I was also able to use some scraps that Zozee sent me for winning one of her guessing games.

I'm still new to quilting, and because it's going to be for a baby, to someone I barely know (I went to high school with her, and remember her brothers, but wasn't friends with them), I wanted to make absolute certain it all holds up. I used a 3/8" seam and did a double stitch on the squares. It made calculating the width of the borders a little more difficult (subtracting 3/4" instead of 1/2" for seam allowance) but I was happy to get it right on the first try.

Now I just need to make a sandwich with some fat quarters to practice my quilting on a machine! (I have only hand quilted anything with a batting. The two quilts I have machine quilted were only backed with fleece.)

I'll probably take the practice piece to the quilting group next week (if I don't get called in to work) and ask them to help me get started.

I'll update when I get it all finished.

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Closeups I took when I was laying out the quilt:

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looks great

That quilt looks like it will be fun to be used by the new parents who obviously like the Seahawks. Really cute and it is obvious you are on your way to being a great quilter-when you have questions, you know where to take them. Keep us posted and enjoy the journey.

I think you did a good job on this, although the larger seam allowance was really not needed.

Anything with Seahawks on it is a real winner and that is a wonderful quilt!

great start

cute quilt!!!

awesome project

Thank you :)

Having some local women willing to teach me is a such a valuable resource. One of the women I quilt with just turned 100 recently! Another one introduced me to this board... And then there is my mom, who can do anything!

Part of the reason I did the 3/8" seam was to work more on getting straight stitches as well. With the 3/8" foot, I am still over both feed dogs and have two lines I can use to judge my seam allowance, the foot and the line of the hole where the feed dogs sit. With the long borders on this quilt, and the way they have to be "just right" in order for my squares to match up, I wanted to give myself a little more help. I was able to get a foot that has the 1/4" seam guide, so might try that and see if I like it on my next machine pieced quilt. Either way, I hope to advance to 1/4" seams soon!

And, completely unrelated, I like to listen to/watch French lessons while I'm quilting. One of last night's new words was "la libellule", which means "dragonfly". Dragonflies are my favorite insect, and there are dragonfly outlines in the light purple fabric. I'm hoping that a constant stream of French while I'm engaged in my hobby will make it easier for me to communicate with distant relatives in France, a family I hope to visit again.