A New Quilt for my Son

 

While I was in the deep lockdown of covid, I was able to complete a ton of projects! It was an amazing feeling to be able to get so much done, and a little shocking how many projects I had backed up. One of the projects I had was a sailors quilt kit. I decided to use the fabric from the quilt to create a completely different project and my son loved it! He immediately claimed it as his own and it disappeared to his room.

 

 

Fast forward a few years and several inches of growth and that quilt is no longer long enough. He asked for a new one and had no special requests. I was stumped on what to make.

 

 

And then, I got a package from a dear quilter friend that included a set of fabric with cactus on it. It has tones of greens and browns; perfect for my son. It’s like she knew just what to send. I found a perfect pattern that is reminiscent of a Navajo blanket pattern, and got to work. 

 

 

 The only thing I needed to add was a background fabric. I found a nice mossy green that matched most of the fabrics and added enough contrast to see the blocks without being to light or dark.

 

 

After completing the blocks, I decided to add sashing with rust-colored cornerstones that add a nice pop of color and continue to pull the different colors together. My sons fave green in this quilt is the dark teal so I used that in the borders along with a striped fabric that was in the collection. I wanted to make sure the quilt was big enough so I added more in the length than the width.

 

 

For the backing, I decided to use up the rest of the fabrics I had in the set and did a patchwork. It’s kind of a nice, random backing that complements the front well.

 

 

I was a little stumped on the quilting. I decided to do a long, stretched out meander in the block patterns, and then a regular meander everywhere else except the rust-colored cornerstones. Those I left without any quilting, adding to the texture of the quilt.

 

 

Finally, the binding was the last of the pebble fabric, and of course my tag reminding me what year I made this. 

 

 

Hopefully this one will last a little longer. He was so happy to have a new quilt, he immediately snagged it out of the dryer before I could take pictures of it. I had to go back to get it to be able to post about. Being the first official finish of 2025, I didn’t want to miss out on sharing this one.