In Memory

I have a friend, we'll call her Mary (because that is her name).  She asked me if I'd help her make a memory quilt for her daughter-in-law.  Mary has never made a quilt but her daughter-in-law was very close to her grandfather and now he is gone.  (And we mothers-in-law can use all the points we can get. Is that not the truth?)  Of course, I said "yes."

Miss Mary

We had ONE shirt from "papa"...that's all we were able to get, ONE shirt.  I wasn't too hopeful we could do much with one shirt (and I didn't get a picture of it...I'm still kicking myself.)

But, we started out.  I picked up the key to the Mezzanine room.










Mary ripped apart the shirt.  We picked a pattern.
Then we went shopping for some fabric at a local fabric store, Jenny's Fabrics.
Mary was skeptical when I suggested we pick a red fabric.  (Actually, she thought I was crazy.)

We started assembling.  The pictures sort of speak for themselves.

We'd cut; we'd sew; then we'd lay it out on our Design Floor. Then we'd repeat.
Cut, Sew, Lay it out, Repeat.

We used every single inch of that shirt...including the crumbs.
If you look close ... we preserved the pocket (second row, last block on the right)
and the placket (third row, second block from the left.)

 

 


Does the pattern look familiar?
It's the same one I used to make the baby quilt  for my colleague and his wife
(which I just fetched from the quilter last night... more about that one later.)
Friendship Star from Missouri Star Quilt.
See my posts from September 7 and September 22.

About 10 days later... it's done.  well, kinda.... 

We were both willing to accept the outer border,
but it didn't quite settle with us.

Certainly didn't add any ZING.

 








So, a couple of days later we got together again
and swapped out the border.  





TA DA!  Ready for the Quilter!!!
There'll be a bunch of hugs (and maybe even a few tears)
on Christmas morning.

National Sewing Month

Apparently September is National Sewing Month.... Who Knew?

I have been sewing quite a bit of late... working on projects with Christmas in mind.

Project Number one is in "add the borders" stage.

Spring is in the Air by Lizzie B Cre8ive

I started this quilt top last month.  (See the post from July 16.) I decided to make it a lap quilt rather than a wall hanging so the borders would need to be fairly wide.  I chose a pattern from The Border Workbook.  My next decision for this quilt is whether to have another border.















I recently became aware that a colleague of mine is expecting a baby before the end of the year.  So, project number two will be completely adorable, but quick quilt with a piece of fabric I found while in Honolulu last month.

I decided on a pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Co BLOCK book from Summer Vol 3, Issue 3
The Friendship Star

Here is what I have so far:

Finally, I'm still working on the Glorious Hexies. Hexies are a hand-sewing project and the going is slow.  But, they are cute.