You know it's an illness when...

The back to school supply list says beach towel and you think quilt.  The Wee Monsieur was supposed to bring a beach towel to use as a rest mat, so I made him a quilt.  Earlier in the summer I had picked up a panel at Joann's that had a word map on it.  It was sort of an awkward long rectangular shape, but I knew I had to get it.  The kids like maps and I like to use every opportunity for them to learn something.  When I started thinking about the rest mat, the world map panel seemed a perfect fit.

I took the panel and put a border on it to bring it up to size and give myself a place to embroider his name.

I love how the blue framingon the panel worked with the tan border I added.  That tan is the same burlap print I used on my MIL's quilt back.

I went back to find something dark for the backing and found a great indigo blue map print.  I sold it to the boy by pointing out the pirate ships in the corners.

I quilted this following the printed latitude and longitude lines on the map panel and then did a few echo lines in the border.

I used a soft grey thread to quilt with because I didn't want to go buy more thread and I thought it would blend best if I occasionally didn't hit the printed line perfectly.

Here is the boy with his quilt/rest mat.

He says he loves it because it has his name on it.  I love that I'm able to make my loved ones unique quilts that make them feel special and loved.