Cole's Coastal Quilt

Time for my semi-annual post on my sewing/quilting blog!  I've sewed and created a little more than what the blog shows but I just don't seem to have time to get posts up on this blog and my family blog too.  However, when Amy's semi-annual Bloggers' Quilt Festival comes around, I get excited to get a post up and see all the other wonderful quilts.  The festival was one of my biggest inspirations for starting to quilt.  Although I haven't been making a lot of quilts, I still enjoy it when I have the time and there are always quilt ideas swirling through my head.

I made this quilt for the newest addition to our extended family.  When my sister-in-law had her first ultrasound, the tech said it was a boy.  Then she had a second ultrasound and they said it was a girl.  It was around this time that I asked her for some ideas on the color of the baby's room so I could work on a quilt.  She said the baby would be sharing a room with big brother.  Big brother's room is sports themed and mostly red and blue.  At first I was a little disappointed to be making a quilt for a little girl with red and blue.  But then I did a little fabric search and found some beautiful fabric bundles with red, blue and pink and I thought they were just perfect for the room - the right colors but definitely girly!

I started cutting my pieces and then ended up taking a break for a bit.  I was just about to get back to the project when we got a phone call that a third ultrasound (pretty close to her due date) showed that it was definitely a boy.  Back to square one.

I did some online fabric searching again and I couldn't seem to find any cute bundles in red and blue for a boy.  Strangely, it had been much easier for a girl.  I had already purchased some of Emily Herrick's Going Coastal fabric but I was unsure if my sister-in-law would want a coastal feel to the quilt.  I decided to go with it because the colors really were great for the room.  I picked up a few more of the fabrics, including the madras plaid that I knew I wanted to use for the backing and the stripe down the middle.  

When I went to put this together, I realized that only had enough different fabrics for 5 stripes instead of the 6 that I had planned.  Somewhere along the line I missed getting the green that I wanted.  I think Cole was already born at that point so I found some Joel Dewberry fabric in my stash that worked well.  To be honest I've always thought that the fabric was little bits of coral but when I read the selvage I realized it is a Manzanita branch.  It still looks like coral to me and in the context of this quilt I imagine that's what everyone else will think too.

The inspiration for this quilt is from Holly at Bijou Lovely Designs.  She posted her Color Block quilt and I knew that I definitely wanted to make one.  She mentioned that if there was enough interest she would come up with a pattern.  After I didn't see one for a while I decided I could figure it out myself.  Especially since Cole was already born and I needed to get this quilt finished and in the mail!  I think the size came out to be 45 x 54.  Shortly after I finished this, Holly published the pattern.   

When I realized that I didn't have quite enough of the plaid for the whole back I decided to do a kind of reverse of the front.  I love how it came out and even happier that I managed to get it lined up well when I was basting because there wasn't any excess fabric in that middle section.

For quilting I was again inspired by Holly and used her video tutorial for wavy line quilting.  It looks like waves and so it ties in perfectly with the beachy quilt. And it was so easy!  I've always done straight line quilting on my quilts and have yet to branch into free motion quilting yet but after doing the wavy quilting I think I might enjoy some FMQ.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my quilt and its story!