“Deep Blue Sea” Quilt

posted in: Sewing | 1

Out of nowhere, with just weeks before my son’s birthday, I decided that I wanted to make him a quilt to celebrate his becoming a teenager. Yes, I am now the mother of a teenager, and I am not OK.

Anyway, I debated what pattern to make and I couldn’t settle on anything so I just stopped searching and gave up on the idea.

Then, a week and a half before his birthday I saw a pattern I liked in a size I wanted and I just ordered the fabric. I thought I’d have at least a week to make the quilt.

 

 

Of course, the fabric took a week to arrive, which meant I had only four days to actually make the quilt from beginning to end.

I did not think it was possible (spoiler alert, it wasn’t) but I had to try. So, the moment the fabric arrived in my home, I started cutting.

I made pretty good progress for a day and half, until I realized I had to seam rip half of the rows I had already sewn together because I had made a vital mistake.

 

 

Surprisingly, that did not take long but it sure was annoying.

I had the quilt top finished by the middle of the fourth full day and I made the quilt sandwich that night.

 

 

The original pattern – Nautical News by Busy Hands Quilts –  was for a twin size quilt but I left the outer border out so my quilt is smaller. The finished, washed, dimensions are 50.5″ by 69″.

I quilted the whole thing on my home machine using a walking foot and straight lines, and that took two days.

Binding went by quickly and I had finished the whole quilt by the middle of the 7th full day.

It was two days after my son’s birthday, but better late than never!

 

 

I am still amazed that I was able to pull this off in this short time, specially considering that this is only my second quilt ever.

The fabrics for the blocks are from a layer cake from the Dappled Blues collection by Robert Kaufman. I love that the blues have tone on tone prints but also colored speckles that are obvious in person and close up.

 

 

I really wanted to do this gradient/ombré look and the layer cake had enough of each color for me to get away with it.

So that’s the story of how I made an entire almost-twin size quilt in less than a week, and boy, did my whole body hurt afterwards!

 

 

  1. Mary

    Very nice! What a great idea for a boy’s gift! They may not say much about it, but I’ve noticed boys appreciate (hang onto things much too long) when someone takes the time to make something especially for them.

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