Quilt for baby Patrick!

Warning: if you are one of Patrick's parents, stop reading. I want you to be surprised. :)

Well, big news! I'm an aunt! And as a New Englander "aunt" rhymes with "flaunt," not "pant." Just saying. I found out almost 9 months ago that Patrick was on his way and it was such a big secret to have to hold in for those first few months! My brother called me at work and asked me if I could make a baby quilt. I thought this was weird because my sister in law also quilts, but then it all came together in my (slow) head and I started crying, so happy!

I started his quilt when we first got to Seattle. I know this because these first photos were taken in my then-"studio" before the neighbors told us it was right above their bedroom. So because I like to sew late at night I now have a permanent setup in the living room. I'm not bitter or anything. Okay, blah blah, let's get to some pictures.

I decided I wanted his quilt to be scrappy, but I don't really have enough scraps, so I cut strips from my stash. I only bought a few fabrics for this quilt - sashing and fabric for the backing, which I'll show later - so I felt good about really using fabric from my stash. I used a few solids, which I sort of regret now, but all-in-all I like how it came out.

Even though I hand selected this palette of fabrics, I still wanted it to look random, so I put all the strips in a bag and picked from it to determine placement of the strips. I allowed myself a few vetoes, though. I can't give up all the control!

I considered laying it out like this with no sashing, but I decided it would be too small, or would require way too many blocks and might be a little crazy. I added navy blue sashing and this thing is HUGE! Granted, Patrick is already almost 2 feet tall, but he could probably take this thing to college. I'll show finished pictures once I finish the binding.

You can see a photo of the quilt pre-basting "by the hearth" in this posting. I got real photo-happy that day and showed too much too fast. I thought I'd go a little more into the process of making this quilt in this posting. Looking at this picture right here I think I do want to do a nice scrappy log cabin quilt with no sashing. Maybe I'll add that to my ever-growing quilting to-do list!

Thanks for looking!