First and (maybe) Last Quilt

A classmate of mine, from graduate school, is about to, and I mean it could be happening right now about to, have a baby.

She is a truly beautiful person inside and out and will be an amazing mother. And her husband Travis is one of the most positive people I know. He is going to be a very supportive and giving father. But this road has been a tough one and when I was invited to the miracle's baby show I wanted to create something special. So I said to myself, I want to make a quilt. What can I say, it's a good thing I didn't know what that meant or I never would have started. But like any good scorpion once the project was started I was going to finish, no matter what. Now I had three important criteria in making the quilt. I wanted the quilt to be as green/eco green as possible. Since the miracle is a boy, I wanted to make a little man quilt. And my friends have Asia influenced decor so I wanted the quilt to fit into that style. With that in mind I was off to my favorite thrift store. I bought and felted 4 pair of wool men's suit pants. I also bought 4 kick @ss silk men's ties and washed and dried them, so the quilt would be washable. Something I understand is important with babies.

Then I created my pattern.

The pant squares would be made up of 4 51/2" by 51/2" squares sewn together to create a larger square. The tie squares would be made up of 2 2" by 10" and 1 31/2" by 10" squares. I then laid the whole quilt out, as recommended by my amazing aunt Francine, Thank you, thank you thank you. And then if you look at the picture and do the math you will begin to see my mistake long before I did. But luckily I had plenty of pant material and I just added another 2 51/2" by 51/2" set of squares and it all worked out but I did begin to melt down for a moment there.

Then the re-arranging of squares began. And being a bit fussy this lasted a day. Yes a day. So bright and early the next morning the sewing and ironing began. And the sewing and ironing continued and continued and continued for the next three days. Did I mention the ironing and sewing. I can say that on the third day my dog's co-owner was very tired of hearing "oh my god they met, the corners all met" and "look at these corners, do you think I need to re-do this?" as a matter of fact the word "corner" is currently banned in our house.

But amazingly the quilted side came together, with a little tweaking, better than I could have expected for a first quilt. For the inside I used a felted wool blanket, I like the flatter handmade quilt look. And the back is a beautiful piece of blue cotton fabric. I sewed the back and inside together with a 4" by 4 " grid pattern and then sewed the back/inside to the quilt front. And ta da a quilt is born.

The final quilt is a small 36" by 36" and mom and dad seem to like it. Thanks for reading my blog. I would love to hear about your quilting adventures. And yes, I hope to go into detail about the henna belly in a later blog.