Riley's quilt

The very first quilt I made was supposed to be for my first baby, but at the time we didn't know if it would have a boy or a girl. A and I picked out some green fabric, which we thought was rather neutral, and I made a very basic nine patch (hope to take photos of this quilt soon...). It seemed to take forever to complete each step along the way, as I didn't really know what I was doing and had to keep refering to a quilting book that my mom had given me years ago constantly. (I was actually shocked and a little proud when I actually finished it - hand quilting and all!)

But upon finding out that we were having a boy, I decided it was too girly and decided to make another one. I fell in love for the first time with fabric - Japanese carp with bamboo and waves - and fussy cut the fish out. I had sewn about 9 blocks of this together (with the fish squared and the green / blue boxes turned), when A suggested I change directions and turn the fish squares instead! It was a challenge to turn it without taking it all back apart, and I wasn't as happy with the way the fish were cut this way, but overall we preferred the look, and I'm glad we did it. I like the way the finished quilt turned out.

This was only the third baby quilt I had made and I must confess - I look at the green and blue solids (and the plain blue backing) now and think, "How boring!" At the time, I was worried about spending too much on fabric (that worry is now loooong gone... replaced by periodic fabric splurges followed by guilty conscience), had only gone to two fabric shops (one quilt shop where I bought material for quilt number two and nearly died at how much it cost and a local craft shop with cheap fabrics) and wasn't brave enough to start experimenting with more adventurous fabric combinations. It's a pretty simple quilt, but I remind myself it is all a learning experience.

(By the time I made my fourth quilt (the fish and bubbles rail fence in previous post) I decided what the hell, and started to really get into fabrics, resulting in a more adventurous backing and binding!)