The Out to Sea Quilt, or, How to Stress Yourself Out Right Before Vacation

Truth be told, I love this thing. Like a fat kid loves cake. Or, like I love donuts. It was such a crazy time-consuming labor of love. To be honest, the inspiration came entirely from the fabric. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to become a beach blanket. Seeing that I'm a brandy-new quilter, I decided to keep things simple and stick to squares. A lot of them apparently.

Six inch squares that I pieced together in blocks of nine, and then kept attaching them together until I had a top piece and a bottom. That's where you can see the shifting blocks and not everything matched up, but I don't mind too much. I didn't have that much of a plan with this, so when I had my large blocks all sewn together, I decided to add a 3" border all the way around. I wanted this as big as I could go with the piece of batting I had, but I didn't have quite enough fabric left from some of the prints so I had to compromise and check my stash for coordinates. The end size is around 5.5' by 6.5'. It fits nicely on top of a queen bed as an extra blanket but would probably be better on a twin.

For the back I decided to use a vintage sheet from my stash. I've been wanting to use it for something fun, and this project was perfect. I mean, it already had enough pink in it to embarrass my husband, so why not just go for it? The sheet is soft and worn which I love, making it the perfect choice. The binding was a bit daring for me but that being said, it might be my favorite part. Its cheery and bright, and for some reason it makes me think of pirates.

In the end I really fell in love with this project even though I stressed myself out trying to complete it before vacation. And although it was a lot of work, I would gladly do it again! (In about three years. Or when my children are in school.) It really got so much use on our trip. We snuggled up in it to watch sunrises and sunsets, it kept us warm over our bed on chilly nights, and it made a great floor blanket for a baby who's just about to crawl. I'm proud of my first non-baby quilt, and I think it'll stick around our family for a long long time.