An old favourite (Across the Sea nostalgia, anyone?)

Last week I was off with the hubbie and kids for mid term break, and in the course of not having to get up before 6:30am, lazing around the house in the mornings and generally taking it easy and having fun, I appear to have found my "sewjo". My brother in law had asked me to make a couple of quilts for him to gift to good friends who had babies recently and when I was trying to figure out what to make for one of them, I was hit by a genius idea.

I got cutting, then I got chain piecing. Almost overnight, I had a quilt top and before I knew it I had a quilt. An Across the Sea quilt. Swoon, swoon, swoon.

I was surprised at the wave of nostalgia I got in comments on Instagram about this one - I think it was a lot of people's first quiltalong, or even their first quilt. I had a bit of a trip down memory lane myself.

This is such a quick and easy block to make, and so striking too. It allows the fabrics to shine, which I always love, and I had lots of lovely FQs in my stash to use for this quilt. Like the retro flowers one, it just came together effortlessly in terms of fabric selection - I always think that's a giveaway as to when you are in possession of your sewjo - when it's absent, fabric selection seems like such a massive hurdle to get over and nothing flows.

I really am happy at how the two amber coloured prints worked with the rest of the colours, they just keep it fresh and vibrant.

I backed this one in some red flannel I had in my stash and I absolutely LOVE it as backing. It's snuggly and soft and the quilting shows up so nicely on it too. I will absolutely be investing in flannel again for backing, its wonderful. It did have a LOT of shrinkage though - I was glad I prewashed, which was more for the red colour than the perceived shrinkage.

 The binding is a fabric from Marmalade which marries the front and back nicely with the pinks and red. I did a stipple quilt on this one using white Aurifil thread.

And all rolled up in squishy perfection!

 All ready to go off to its new home :-)

If you want to make an Across the Sea quilt, Jennifer and I did a quiltalong for it a few years ago, you can find all the pattern posts here. I'll be linking this up to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and don't forget to come back here tomorrow to link up your February scrappy projects in the Put Your Scraps to Work challenge.