Sweet Baby James

Different quilts start in different places for me. Sometimes it starts with a color scheme or a stack of fabrics. Sometimes a design or a shape I’d like to make. Sometimes the whole thing seems to pop up almost fully-formed in my head, waiting to be executed.

This one started with the fabrics. Specifically, some of my long-hoarded, out-of-print Heather Ross fabrics, which were desperately waiting for just the right little boy. Almost directly from one of the Heather Ross prints, I was in love with the combination of aqua/sky, navy blue, and a reddish orange – no brown. Boyish without being TRUCKS AND PIRATES AND ALIENS, and appropriately preppy for the son of a pair of Manhattan lawyers.

The only question was – what to do with it all? I hit up my Pinterest boards, looking for something that would be quick and relatively simple, but not too boring. The one that jumped out at me was the Reunion Quilt from That girl… That quilt. So lovely! Simple patchwork made just a bit more interesting with some hourglass blocks thrown in.

Needless to say, this came together quickly, and I am so, so happy with how all of the fabrics work together. The solids in the half-square triangle and hourglass blocks, in case you’re wondering, are Kona Aqua, Tangerine, and Nightfall, with Snow.

The back is a polka dot I bought ages ago at Joann’s, as though it were always meant for this project. To bring it up to size, I added some more Nightfall and Tangerine (not easy colors to photograph, especially indoors in the winter!), as well as the light blue Lizzy House XO print.

I didn’t realize until I went back to link to the inspiration quilt how close to exactly the same quilting I did on mine. Whoops! I started out quilting either side of the horizontal seams, and then went back and quilted diagonally, every third block. So the whole thing has stayed nice and soft and minimally quilted, but I like that some of the squares have a diagonal or an X through them.

The binding is even more hoarded Heather Ross – a stripe from Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries that I randomly scored a few years ago at my first Boston Modern Quilt Guild meeting.

So, off this quilt has flown to New York, to hopefully be loved and used and abused by Lucy‘s new little brother, James. Hope you love it, sweet boy! (And your mama, too.)