Lots of Holiday Making

I made a lot of gifts for the holidays this year.

I think one reason I didn't post much was because a lot of the crafting I was doing had a gift recipient who might read my blog.

One such gift I made was a quilt for my nephew, Quinn - age 5.

I made him a checkerboard quilt that I designed.  I don't know much about designing quilts, I just needed something that was easy.

My inspiration was a vintage fabric with a nautical theme and the fact that Quinn's bed is built into his wall like a captain's bed on a ship.

Here's my design process...not very technical.

Graph paper, crayons.

I used Red and Blue fabrics to complement the vintage ships fabric which I fussy cut and left as 12" squares.

I made random checkerboards using different sized squares.

I pieced them all together.

I took it to my Philly Modern Quilt Guild Meeting for Show and Tell and a bit of advice seeking (bad photo).

I pieced a nautical looking back - I love the way Modern quilters use design on both the front and the back of a quilt.

The quilting was very simple diagonal lines (on the machine) - I'm still learning...

The binding was my FIRST ever binding.  I made 2.5" binding strips, sewed them to the back and hand stitched them to the front.  I loved the process of hand-stitching.

I started the quilt top just over a week before Christmas and was finishing the binding just a few days before Christmas.

Quinn loved the quilt and I hope it lives on his bed and he gets a chance to snuggle in it often and for many years to come.