Navigational Beacons

 My daughter in law likes pirates.  Did you know that there is a National Talk Like a Pirate Day?  ARGH!!!!

I do not know where this pirate love of hers comes from, but I respect it.  I think it's cute.

She is also not into "vintage".  More of a contemporary girl.  So, out shopping a few months ago, I found the orange print fabric you can see in the selection at left.  I decided it would be the fabric I would base all others on for my new grandson's baby quilt.  I have looked at that fabric for a while now, trying to decide.  This past weekend I sat myself down and said, OK, let's make a decision.

First of all, I had to decide what quilt I was going to do.  I went through my stash and came out with the advert (for a magazine or calendar) that you see in the photo below, on the left.  It's an ad for American Patchwork & Quilting.  More about them below.

As you can see by my sketch (above right) I decided to alter the design just a little bit.  No applique stars for me, 'cause this needs to be a quick quilt.  So there will be a square block, then a rectangle block, then repeat for the first row.  My sketch doesn't show it, but I think that for the next row I will start with the rectangle block and then the square block.  There won't be a row (as shown in the APQ ad) of rectangles and squares on their sides.  I think that's how I'm going to do that.

So, that got me down to my colors - five of them.  Yellow, orange, red and black in the square blocks and yellow, polka dot and black in the rectangle blocks.  Note that the blocks don't go around all four sides with the black strips - they share one strip of black between them.

Then I had to figure out how much I needed to cut so I could see if I had enough fabric.  The yellow came out of my stash and I easily had enough to cover my needs there.  My concern was over the polka dot that also came out of my stash.  Turns out, no worries there either.  In fact, the only thing I had to go out and buy was the black.  Oh, and also the white.  'Cause I'm going to put something very piratey on the back in a corner.  But that will be a surprise in the end.  The quilt will end up being 44 inches by 56 inches which I think should be big enough for a baby quilt.  I sure hope so! 

Whoops!  EDITED  Forgot to say what I was going to say about American Patchwork & Quilting.  If you go to the link (their website) you can scroll down and see that there have been some unhappy comments made by subscribers.  Kind makes me glad that I don't subscribe.   Anyway, one of the comments says she can't figure out how to get in touch with customer service.  Well, I just so happened to remember that APQ and Better Homes and Gardens are all published by The Meredith Corporation.  So I looked them up (see link) and note that you can call their customer service at 1-888-616-7679.  I think that they have always had quality publications, but in these days and times it's hard for newspapers and magazines to meet their profit margins.  They've probably downsized quite a bit.  I personally look forward to magazines moving into the E-subscription business.  Hope that helps.