Baby Nixon's Quilt

We've been loving our summer holidays and have just returned from an 8 night cruise to some beautiful Pacific islands with my extended family, as well a 3 week holiday to Queensland to spend Christmas with Todd's family. I feel very spoiled. With the baby due the end of March I don't think we'll be going away again any time soon, so it was lovely to create special memories.  We've returned to a scorching heat wave. The forecast is 46 degrees Celius today (115 degrees Fahrenheit), so we're bunkering down in the air conditioned room, and I finally have a moment to share Nixon's quilt with you.

We were lucky enough to be visiting with my in laws, Leia and Ben, when she had their beautiful son, Nixon, 2 days after Christmas. You forget how tiny newborns are, even though he was a good size - 9 pounds, 4 ounces. It makes me excited to meet my little one (we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, we're having a surprise.) I finished Nixon's quilt just in time (sewing the binding on while they were in the hospital.)

The idea for this quilt came from the back of my latest Gathered In quilt. It seems that I do that a lot - try out a new idea on the back of a quilt first. Lotta Jansdotta's fabric looks lovely against the white sashing. I'm not sure the exact size of this quilt, but it would be about 100cm by 120cm.

They live by the beach, so quilting waves and pebbles/bubbles in the sashing seemed appropriate. I really enjoyed quilting this because I could use the seams as a guide.

You can see the quilting quite well on the back.

I tried wool wadding for the first time. It was lovely to work with and made the quilt puffier than usual, so the quilting stands out and it's nice and soft.

Here's little baby Nixon...

And here he is being loved by his big sisters and cousins.