Row By Row

I'm not sure how many quilts Jonah will have by the time he is grown, but I imagine it will be several.  I often see patterns and think that they would be perfect for him, but I know that time and need are both limiting factors.  Nonetheless, I began a second quilt for him during a retreat in Door County last March. At that point, it was my first time away from him outside the work day and one brief date night, and I think it helped to be working on a project specifically for him.  I'd seen the Lollipop fabric line by Sandy Gervais that featured a cute panel with a monkey on a bicycle and I thought Jonah would enjoy it:

The panel that started it all.

Knowing that the panel would finish up smaller than what I wanted for the space above his changing station, I opted to buy the panel and coordinating fabric for a larger quilt.  Well, here we are a year later, and the panel still hasn't been made into anything (I do have a cute pattern design for using it now!), and I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the quilt I started a year ago and completed last summer.  Better late than never!

The February 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting had a pattern called "Row by Row" by Sandy Klop that I liked and thought would be fun.  It's a pretty traditional pattern, but one that I thought could grow with Jonah over time and would be made more modern by the colors and fabric design. Here it is, all done up:

The finished quilt.

I had Patched Works quilt this one so I could get a fun monkey and banana pattern in the quilting that I didn't feel ready yet to attempt on my own.  I think you should be able to see one of the monkeys in this close-up view:

Detail view showing monkey and banana in the quilting.

The quilt has been hanging over Jonah's diaper changing station for some time now, and he will often point out the dots and letters and different colors on the quilt. It is so darn cute to hear him say "qwee-ilt!" I took it down recently to measure it for the quilt show this weekend and to put on a temporary sleeve. You can tell he notices that he is missing, which really means a lot to me. I love making his room brighter and creating projects that will be keepsakes in years to come!