a quilt for Walter

Baby quilt number seven is currently in process for Eurydice May.  Of those soon to be seven quilts six have been for baby girls.  The only little boy (for a few more weeks anyway) born to my dear friends is Walter.  He made his arrival nearly a year ago joining his big sister Eleanor.  

For his quilt I wanted to try my hand at making a string quilt.  For this particular structured process you take a piece of paper and square it off.  I tried a few sample squares with letter sized paper and from that experience I knew I wanted to make Walter's squares a little bigger.  For his I used a ledge-sized base that came out to eleven inches square.  

 I laid out the squares to "sketch" the final size and design.

A center strip is stitched down diagonally across the paper base and from there each layer is sew onto the center strip but not the paper.  

After each block was stitched I ironed them and trimmed the edges using the paper back as my guide.  At that point I gently tore off the paper.

 Lining up the center of the diagonal was my main goal in the final piecing.

For the back I chose a solid piece of natural linen.

I added an outside border to give the quilt more size.  Overall, I tried to keep the fabric choices simple and geometric.  Having made so many girl quilts keeping a more masculine tone was a bit of a challenge.  Finally, I hand quilted it together with robin's egg blue crochet thread.  Using the thread still gives the look of sashiko that I like but the thread has a good twist and strength.  I spent a majority of the quilting while I substituted for a week of German class.  The students were watching a film and working on projects and had a lot of independent time.  That was such a fun week.

Per tradition, Katherine and I took a drive to deliver the finished piece and meet the little Walter.  He was so small and new and as sweet as can be.

It was a perfect fit.

Happy Birthday little Mister!  Congratulations Stacy Lane and Adam on your first year raising your son and as parents to two children.  The fun has just begun.