Sharing is Caring

While I absolutely agree with this sentiment, I suspect we have all had a child use it to their advantage when we had something they want.  The fun part of that is turning the table on occasion.

But, I've had a chance to share Lola with one of the most important people in my life:  my-niece-the-quilter.

I actually love this quilt -- not necessarily for the fabric choices -- but for what it represents. She has a friend who will be moving to Pennsylvania in the next month or so and wanted to make a quilt from the group of friends. So -- everyone (including kids) were instructed to pick out a FQ of a fabric that had some meaning for them with the departing couple. That is brave -- these are not quilters and one never knows what they will get.

She got hippos that "may" represent when they were pregnant together. She got the logo of a pie restaurant where the two guys were on a first name basis. She got turkeys because two families always spent Thanksgiving Day together. She got pumpkins because they met in a pumpkin patch. She got Harry Potter because one of the children adores it. She got cowboy boots because they bought the first pair of cowboy boots for one of the kids. She used fabric for the border that was the same fabric she had made luncheon napkins for a maternity shower. What a conglomeration. The upside was that most of the fabric were Spoonflower and not cheap see-through material!

I think this is the perfect pattern (don't know the name) for so much variation and the use of Kona gray sashing to help tie everything together -- along with a black inner border -- resulted in a special special quilt.

Add to that, my-niece-the-quilter had only longarmed one quilt years ago. She chose to stipple and did a great job. Learning to stipple and keep it even is not easy but she did it.  

I am so proud of her and love the finished product!

I hope you are getting to share your love of quilting with someone you love!

Jan

Our Little Guy....

This may be a long post -- forewarned is forearmed!

This cute little fellow is our only grandchild who we went visit in Canada earlier this month.  While we were there, we were able to give him his gifts for his second birthday as well as his birthday quilt.  How much fun is that!

This was made following the directions in Tonya Ricucci's book, Word Play Quilts, and referencing some of her blog posts.  I have to say this was absolutely one of the "funnest" quilts I've made.  You really only need a ruler to square your blocks once you learn to cut generous strips.  I finally learned to make the outside background strips big enough to be able to square up the blocks and still allow for a seam allowance.  Blocks were not made to a specific size...I just started laying them out and if I needed to make one a bit bigger -- I added a strip of a complementing color.  Did I mention this was fun?

I will say that I never quite got my "N's" exactly right.  As you can see here -- the lower case "n" is pretty good here -- the upper case is not.  In some cases, the lower case "n" looks like it's backward because of my cutting angle.  In that case, I made sure the "f" was clearly lower case to make sure it was "alphabetically" correct.  :-)

In order to have a bit more fun with the back, I ordered five FQs from Spoonflower.  What a great business model.  I won't go into a lot of detail here but if you don't know about them, it's worth hearing their story and seeing what they offer.  I was able to scan their database and order the FQ in science-related fabrics (periodic table, DNA, elements, flame test, and molecules).  These were not for little Finn.  They were really in honor of his parents who are both microbiologists.

I wasn't able to get to Chicago to quilt this so I had to suffer through with some great variegated Valdani thread!  I didn't want a lot of quilting as the words are the stars so it went fast and holds it together.  Definitely not anything fancy.

As you might imagine, custom printed fabric is not cheap so I had to "make do" on the back and maximize the science fabrics!  You've actually seen the back through the pieced wool batting in this post.

As a bonus, since I had to fussy cut the periodic table so it was whole, I was able to salvage almost a complete one (roman numerals are missing at the top in case you aren't a chemist) and create a mug rug for our son.

I will definitely make another quilt with letters -- maybe all Christmas words?  Or family names?  Or friends' names?  I'm not sure but I have lots of wonderful solids and scraps and they will need a home one of these days.

When I look at finished quilts in the past year or so, this seems like a great quilt to enter in Amy's Creative Side and her semi-annual Bloggers Quilt Festival.  It meets all the criteria (it's actually quilted -- I have way too many tops that need attention) and I'll put it in the baby section.  If you have never spent any time looking through her festival, you are in for a treat.  Check out some of the best of the best of the blogging world!

I hope you are working on your "funnest" quilt.  If you're not -- check out Tonya's book and see if this might not be just the ticket for learning something new and creating a one-of-a-kind quilt!

Jan