Little Man's Nursery Projects - #1 Gone Fishing Improv Baby Quilt

My sweet Little Man's nursery theme is "Gone Fishing". My husband wanted a fishing motif, I wanted nautical and neither of us liked the typical colors.. What did we end up with? A fishing motif in sweet, soft oceanic color tones. Lots of cool blues, clementine orange, sandy browns and a touch of light green. The nursery is serene and the whole family enjoys being in there.

I wanted to create a number of items just for him, like I did with the girls, even though my time is honestly more stretched now. I wanted to create a couple pieces of art for his room that would be meaningful. At the top of list of thing I wanted to create was a large quilt piece to be focal in the nursery. And I had no ideas. Inspiration would just not come and I was getting sick with it. I wanted it to be more art than traditional, but I wanted it to be pieced. And I have come to accept that I really, really don't like creating realistic or literal pieces. I gave up and created a pretty simple modern quilt.. and hated making it. There was no connection, no piece of me in this other quilt. Finally a good friend told me to trash it and start over. Ugh! Really? I could never do that.. and so that quilt has become a carseat cover, a much more functional and adorable use for a quilt that held little meaning.

What to do? I'm still a novice at improv piecing, I can count on one hand the number of projects I've created in that style. However, I'm always happy when I create in that fashion. I decided that I would do an impressionist piece with a single fish that was not too abstract, but not too cutesy. I loved the process, I was eager to work on it and it felt right.. I finally found the quilt that gave my son a piece of me.

The details of the quilt..

It is 22"x30" - I had originally envisioned a very large piece, but we ended up having less wall space and I had to par it down.

It is completely pieced - no applique or fusing at all. This is huge for me. Of course for bed quilts, I've always pieced, but it when it comes to art pieces, I've run from piecing. I always felt like the precision of piecing would somehow kill the spontaneity of the art. I never had that feeling with this quilt I think because it was improv pieced with a very vague plan. This is also the very first time I used curved piecing as well.. It was not that scary and the gentle waves were perfect for this piece.

I quilted it on my domestic machine. Given its smaller size and that I learned how to FMQ on my domestic, it made the most sense. Maybe one day I'll enjoy quilting art pieces on my mid-arm, but um..yeah not yet. The majority of the quilt has 2 motifs - white waves and blue bubbles. The little bit of white sky has fluffy clouds and I left the fish unquilted.

My single goldfish swimming in a sea of blue. Looking for new adventures and eager to see the world. My sweet Little Man, that is my wish for you.

*****
I am linking up this post to Amy's fabulous Blogger Quilt Festival.
I heartily encourage you to visit and dive into all the amazing quilts that have been posted.