'Here Fishy Fishy' Baby Quilt Finished

It's time for Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival and although ranch life has kept me away from the sewing machine lately, I have a quilt to add to the fun that I recently finished. Thank you, Amy, for giving us a place to gather and celebrate our love of quilting!

                                                

There will be lots of wonderful new blogs to discover and get ready for a slew of new inspiration as you browse through the wonderful quilts and read the stories behind them. Click HERE to be inspired!

If you popped in here via the festival, welcome to the end of the dirt road where quilting meets ranch life.

Every time I work on a baby quilt, I fall in love with it. These little fish were so much fun to applique. I've got a long way to go before I'm satisfied with my applique, but I just had to get over it and dive in or I'll never improve.

 Same goes for the quilting. I'm new to FMQ and I'm pretty tickled with it on this quilt. I didn't have one tuck or bobble on the backside although my stitch length seemed to vary and I'm thinking that had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn't able to keep a consistent speed. I need a cruise control on my machine. :)

                           

I stitched slowly on the applique, but I still had my thread sort of lose tension every so often. Not sure what causes that, but I'll play around with some practice pieces and see if I can get it all lined out. You can see it on the mouth of the little starfish here:

                    

I adore that little starfish with his wonky eyes. I straight line quilted the chevrons.

                               

 Boy, those little buggars gave me a run for my money, but in the end, things lined up ok. This pattern is from Heather Mulder Peterson's book: Little Quilts 4 Kids. Her directions are wonderful, but I just had to get my head on straight when piecing them in order to make the best use of the fabric. This is Heather's fabric line as well and I'm thinking I need to add some more of it to my stash.

Then I didn't have a clue as to how to quilt the background fabric so I kind of winged it and I am thrilled with it! It was fun and liberating although my shoulders were sore when I finished.

                                      

I backed it with a green that I had in my stash that matched perfectly and the fun multicolored chevron stripe print in the fabric line made a darling binding.

             

And I added this little label that I showed y'all the other day:

      

And here's the finished quilt for a very special little boy::

Isn't that a darling pattern?

This quilt measures 44" x 47",  and it's on its way to my awesome niece and her husband who had their first baby in July. Yes, I am late, but I was waiting on the release of this fabric. They are avid fishing fanatics so I knew I had to make this quilt, using Heather's darling fabric, for her sweet baby boy.