Nautical Themed Baby Quilt

Finished quilt top

     Recently I had the pleasure of working with a client that wanted to make a nautical themed quilt for a new grandbaby on the way.  She herself is a quilter but does not own an embroidery machine.  I had her go to Embroidery Library to choose the designs she wanted.

Designs from Embroidery Library

     She found a cute design set with 10 fun appliqué designs.  I bought the set.  She bought her fabrics and then drew out on the white fabric, a grid of squares.  The squares were slightly larger than she was going to cut them to allow for any possible shrinkage with the stitching.

Designs from Embroidery Library

     As you can see there wasn't really much distortion with the stitching.  She told me her color scheme and I pulled fabrics from my stash to make the appliqués.  I printed out the designs using my software and then cut out the shapes.  I traced them in reverse onto paper-backed fusible webbing.  I then ironed it onto my fabric and cut out my shapes.

Designs from Embroidery Library

     I hooped the white fabric, centering the drawn square, and then stitched the first color, placement line.  I removed the hoop from the machine and using my mini-iron I ironed the shape in place.  I replaced the hoop on the machine and then stitched the tack down stitches.  When I was satisfied that everything looked okay I finished the rest of the stitching.

Designs from Embroidery Library

     I then gave the finished pieces to my client.  She cut them to size and stitched the quilt top.  She was then going to have it quilted and give it to her daughter at the baby shower.  However her grandson had a different idea and came into this world a couple of months early.  Since he was now here, she decided to have me add all the vital statistics to the quilt top.

Designs from Embroidery Library

     Again using my software, I created the lettering for the squares.  I included his name, date and time, and weight and length.  I chose thread colors to match the fabric in the quilt.  It was a bit harder to hoop now with the seams in the way but everything lined up nicely.  Client was thrilled and her grandson is doing well.  I hope he will enjoy his quilt for many years.

Quilt top before adding the lettering