Quilt for Cody, part 1

I have two wonderful nephews who thankfully are young enough to like getting a quilt made for them by their favorite Aunt (that's me of course!). Since the older of the two already got his quilt a few years ago its time to make one for the younger one.
 The theme is "Finding Nemo" and I am doing a basic nine patch quilt square.

Fabric for Nemo quilt.

The Nemo fabric was purchased on ebay and came pre-cut. I am also using fat quarter sets from Joann's Fabric store. I spent some time at my sister/sister-in-law's house recently working on this quilt in their beautiful quilt/painting studio.

An outside view of the studio at night

Madison was there with us also, napping through part of the quilting!

I've decided that I am going to keep the quilt simple, mainly because it's really hard to find time to sew right now since I stay home with Madison. She doesn't have a lot of patience for my sewing!
I found this pattern in a quilt magazine my sister had. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the issue and name of the magazine!

I am going to use this pattern as a reference guide, since I really don't like to use patterns for quilting! I have my reasons, which seems to boggle my sister, a much better quilter than me, but it seems to kind of work for me.
I will be using the Nemo squares as the flower square in this quilt and then using the fat quarters for the nine patch blocks.

I cut out the fat quarters into 2 1/2" strips. I started to sew them together, but please check back to see the progress!