A baby quilt for a future someone

I've told you about the wedding quilt I'm making for my daughter and son-in-law...how they've been married since October 2003...how it's not finished yet. Well, so as NOT to be in that same situation when they have a baby (don't get excited...no baby is planned for a couple of years) I decided to be proactive and make the quilt now! Actually I finished it last summer. It's made with 1930's reproduction fabrics, and the pattern is "My Aunt Gracie's Quilt" from Calico Cat Patterns & Designs. (middle of the page)

This is the front of the quilt showing the border and binding.

Closeup showinhg the quilting in the white blocks. Each large block has an animal in it: elephant, butterfly, rabbit, squirrel, cat, etc. There are three repeats of each animal.

This shows you the back of the quilt. I just LOVE this fabric.

The quilt is machine pieced and hand quilted. I still need to put a label on it but I think I'll wait until there's a baby on the way!

A swatching we will go...and the orange blanket...but not in this order!

In an earlier post I mentioned the orange baby blanket I learned to knit on (bad grammar, sorry). Well, here it is in all it's glory. This thing has been through a lot! Went to college with me as a little something to keep me warm, went to preschool with my daughter as something to keep HER warm, and now it lives in my office to once again keep me warm. I wonder if I'll pass it on to my eventual grandchild to keep her/him warm too!! It will probably be the only day-glo baby blanket at preschool!

I never realized how difficult it is to photograph yarn! Well, here is my sockpal yarn balled (not the best ball I've ever wound but it was late at night....) and a swatch for gauge. I adore these dp needles: Lantern Moon #1. This is the first time I've ever knit on something so tiny. What do you think about the colors. My sockpal said she likes saturated colors. The yarn knits up beautifully and I can't wait to finally decide on my pattern and to REALLY get going on the socks.

And now for something completely different...quilts

I've said that I'm a quilter but you wouldn't know it from anything I've posted to date! Well, that's all going to change right now. About four years ago I was having lunch with a wonderful friend, talking about life and whatnot, and I must have mentioned that I wanted to do something completely different. Now, my friend is a fantastic quilter, and we just happened to be in our local coffee shop that happened to be having an exhibition of quilts, and so she said, why not make a quilt!! This was about 6 months before my daughter was going to be married so I thought, why not make them a wedding quilt present? (Foolish woman!) So we spent many wonderful hours pouring over quilt books for the perfect pattern, shopping for the perfect fabric, and so the saga of the wedding quilt began.

Now, you'd think that I'd be posting pictures of the wedding quilt, wouldn't you? Well, no. I'm jumping ahead a bit here. In the process of making this quilt I met a friend of friend #1, who shall now be called friend #2, and we started gathering at each other's house once a month to work on our respective projects. Long story short: we decided to make a friendship quilt together. We would each end up with our own quilt. We selected the pattern collectively, although I think #2 brought the pattern to us. #1 and #2 both have been quilting for a long time and have built up a considerable stash so I had to start building up my own stash (a dirty job but SOMEBODY's got to do it :) ) and thus began the friendship quilt.

We decided early on that we would use only reproduction fabrics, preferably from the Civil War era, maybe a little before and a little after. We would each make three of the particular bloc, keeping one and sharing the other two. We each chose a different fabric for the shashing between the blocs, and a different backing. Each quilt is assembled according to the whims and preferences of the maker, and each quilt is so beautiful. The elements are all alike, with the exception of one unique bloc in each quilt, but they all look SO different! We are all handquilting using the Bishop's fan pattern.

#1 finished her quilt a while ago as she needed a finished product for the class she was teaching, and #2, a fantastic quilter also, is pretty far along with hers also. Me, I'm lagging behind a bit because I wanted to have at least half of the wedding quilt quilted before I began this one. So, here is the friendship quilt. I hope that I'll be able to share pictures of all three quilts later.

Front of friendship quilt, with basting intact.

Quilt backing.

Bishop's fan hand quilting.