Monday 17 February 2014

a tale of two quilts

Last September I started to plan a quilt each for my girls. I asked them separately to choose one fabric from my stash and I would plan a quilt around their choice. Remarkably they each chose the same fabric in different colourways, this Kaffe Fasset design Tile Flower. 



I decided on a simple square design and I used colours to complement their fabric choice. I wanted to include lots of fabric I had printed and slowly built up enough in a range of colours to make two single bed sized quilts. 

I gave the girls three blank squares each and some fabric pens and let them draw or write whatever they wanted to capture their 6 and 8 year old selves in these quilts. 
Missy Big did a self portrait, a drawing of her sister, her favourite teddy and doll and a heart.
Little Missy put all her favourites in one square, bunnies, a rainbow, butterflies and all our ages, in another a heart and the other one is a crazy ramble of jumbled words and numbers, which sums up her active mind and jump before looking attitude perfectly.
These squares make my heart ship a beat when I look at them.


I'm hand quilting these, so it's slow but happy progress. I'm using perle thread in a bunch of cheery colours and wiggling lines across the quilt.


I am loving making these, but I can hardly wait to see them being snuggled under, used to make dens and dragged across the floor like I didn't spend a gazillion hours making them.



Throughout the process of making these I made a new friend in the school playground. She was so inspired by all my quilt talk she made her first quilt for her Mum, a double sized quilt, in about a month and took it to her in South Africa over Christmas. 
We had lots of frantic "how do I do..." chats at pick up time and somehow she got this finished in time, I'm so impressed! There are two embroidered hand shapes and a drawing by each of her children in this. Needless to say her parents were thrilled.  



Stunning isn't it! I love her almost 3 year olds contribution. She most definitely has the quilting bug now and is planning her next quilt(s). 


Linking in with My Creative Space, so glad to see this back again, I missed it so!