Ford's Christmas Quilt

For Christmas this year, David had my wedding rings resized to fit my chubby post-baby-you-ain't-22-anymore fingers. I'm extremely grateful to be an honest woman again after months of walking around without my rings and a baby on my hip.

I gave David a ukulele.

That's right. A ukulele.

He didn't ask for it, but I had the sneaking suspicion that he would like a tiny, quirky guitar. 

And I was right! He loves it. He serenades Ford and me around the house with an eclectic mix of tunes ranging from "You Are My Sunshine" to Sufjan. 

The best gifts I've given David over the years have been, like the ukulele, risky. Probably 10 years ago, I gave him a bow tie...long before they graced the necks of nearly every fellow on southern college campuses. 

The first year we were married, I gave him a pipe. 

And now...the uke. 

Back off ladies. He's all mine!

I mentioned in my last post that we just gave Ford one gift from us for Christmas. I wanted to give him something special that he could keep forever as his first Christmas gift, but I also wanted it to be fun and useful to him (or us) now. 

Soooooo....I decided to attempt my first quilt for my first born. I've wanted to make a quilt for a long time, and this was the perfect reason to take on the project.

I think it turned out pretty well!

 

A quilt fit the bill for being something that was both a useful gift for a baby boy and a keepsake. I didn't use traditional "baby" colors because I want to able to use the quilt for many years. I chose fabrics that were bright and boy-ish but that also represent things about our family. Some squares have guitars, bicycles, and cameras to represent our hobbies. There are squares with travel scenes, starfish, and even wood grain to represent places we like to go. 

Here's a larger version of the above picture so you can see the fabrics a little better.

I added a stripe of leftover fabric on the back to jazz it up a little.

And I embroidered a little inscription on one of the back squares. I wanted it to look like it was carved into a tree trunk.

The quilt is about 72 inches square, which is a little shorter than a twin size quilt. I modified THIS PATTERN from Cluck Cluck Sew (a great quilting resource) for a baby quilt to make it a little bigger. I largely based my fabric choices on this quilt from Joy's Hope, another lovely blog.

This is a great pattern for a beginning quilter because you don't have to line up squares to make corners.  It only took me a couple of days to make this (with plenty of interuptions from an 8 month old and mostly working once everyone had gone to bed!) Once you cut out your pieces, you sew them into rows and then sew your rows together. 

Because I wanted my quilt to last for a long time, I decided to have a long arm quilter put it together for me, rather than doing the actual quilting myself. The result is a wonderful "old quilt" feel- it's just the right weight and delightfully crinkly. 

We are already enjoying cuddling up with Ford's quilt...almost as much as we are enjoying listening to David play his ukulele. I hope that they'll both enjoy their gifts for many years to come!

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

mel