This is a quilt made special for Joe Knapp, my son, as a Christmas gift in 2005. His favorite color is blue. I started collecting numerous blue fat quarters to build him a quilt from. I used Sharyn Craig’s “Northwind” technique for the block. I hadn’t worked with templates in a while but found them very easy to use. It’s amazing the number of variations you can do with the Northwind block but I stayed with the original block for this quilt. I decided to set them in the traditional barn raising setting to allow for more room to play with the quilting. When quilting it, I did a mixture of free form quilting designs that are angular and swirls to create a new look for this quilt. I was very pleased with the outcome. And Joe was very surprised on Christmas morning.