First Gift Quilt - the Nautical Baby version

Written by Brittany Lloyd

I recently made a baby quilt for our brand new nephew and it sparked a lot of questions after I shared a photo of him on the quilt in our newsletter a few weeks ago. I love that ya'll love it, and I figured I'd share a few more photos and details about the quilt. Brace yourself for lots of cute photos in this post!

Noah was born this past spring and he's our newest nephew (of 4!). He has two older brothers and their mom is Peter's sister, Megan. All of our families are based in North Carolina, but Pete's sister and her family all live in Connecticut. So it was a really sweet time when we were able to travel up there this past May and meet Noah for the first time and visit our other two nephews.

It's tradition that each nephew gets a baby quilt when they're born. So I was super excited to plan and make a quilt for Noah and bring it with us to "give" it to him in person. I made the two older brothers quilts when they were born and they all have a whale/ nautical theme. After talking with Megan, she said that she wanted Noah's quilt to be similar but slightly different. She briefly mentioned that it'd be neat to include some fabrics from the other two quilts, but she didn't think it was possible based on how much time as passed and the possibility of fabrics being "out of print." Well, I took this as my personal challenge to find at least one fabrics from each of the older brother's quilt to include in this new quilt.

Then it was time to choose a quilt pattern. I threw out the idea of Celtic Crossing and Homecoming, Megan requested my First Gift quilt pattern in a scrappy patchwork style. This felt super special, as you might recall First Gift is based off of my own baby quilt that my grandmother made for me. You can read about the pattern and that specific quilt here.

I used a solid fabric for the sashing (Color 1), then various prints for Color 2 and Color 3. I essentially followed the Modern instructions of the pattern, but used various prints instead of yardage. This is a little different from the what is written because the pattern calls for strip piecing...but it's easy enough to make the swap and individually piece the blocks.

I created the Baby size of the pattern, which is 45" square. I actually really love this size, as it feels big enough to be a toddler quilt and even one that could be used on a bed or as a lap quilt as they grow older.

The Backing is a print from Moda called Sailboats in Sky Blue and for the binding, I used Art Gallery Fabrics Glacier, which is a new PURE solids by Suzy Quilts.

I really love this pattern for showing off large cuts of a fabric without any seams going through them. I have a few other patterns that are great for this reason (Metamorphosis, Summer Pop, Celtic Crossing, Triangle Fade) but I never really thought of First Gift as that kind of pattern. Until now!

Here's a list of the fabrics that I used for the front of the quilt:

Color 1

Kona Delft

Colors 2 + 3

Unknown Linen
Swiss Dots in Navy by Riley Blake
To the Sea - Sailboats in Sky Blue by Janet Clare for Moda Fabrics
To the Sea - Sailboats in Sand by Janet Clare for Moda Fabrics
Waves in Navy by Amy Van Luijk for Figo Fabrics
Add it Up in Blue Slate by Alexia Marcelle Abegg for Ruby Star Society (Moda)
SS Bluebird Whales from Cotton + Steel (from 2017; out of print)

Another important thing to note: since some of these fabrics are directional, and the quilt top is constructed on-point, or on a 45 degree angle, I cut a few of the fabrics on the bias so that the prints would appear straight in the quilt and not rotate 45 degrees.

I sent this quilt for Stitch Lab for long-arm quilting and we went with Ocean Waves #2 pantograph. For each of the baby quilts, I wanted to use a quilting design that mimicked waves and motion, so I really love how this looks with the nautical fabrics.

Megan is a photographer in Connecticut, and she takes some stunning photos! She does weddings, newborn photos, branding photoshoots and more. If you need a photograph in the New London, CT area, check out her work here.

She took some super sweet photos of our time visiting, including when we gave Noah his baby quilt. Notice their Christmas Joy quilt on the back of the chair? :)