anna's quilt

Yesterday I got to meet little Anna.  She's such a sweetie.  Her mom brought her, along with big brother Gabe (quilt here) and big sister Claire (quilt not blogged here yet...oops!), to a park near their home and we had a picnic.

Claire just turned 4 and is an amazing young lady.  She and I had a nice conversation about her cats: Motley Crue and Milli Vanilli, among other things.

Gabe isn't 2 yet, but what a stubborn little man with a mind of his own!

I don't get to hang out with them often (schedules are difficult, never mind that mom and I both work), so this was a treat.  They're great kids.

Little Anna didn't make a peep the whole time.  She's such a content little baby.  Maybe that's just her nature, but she's surrounded by love and I'm sure she senses that and it calms her, too.

But the real reason to meet was to give her her quilt.  (Well, give it to mom...)

This quilt had a twisted path to get where it is now.  I started out with two ideas, this being one, and headed to Hobby Lobby for fabric.  I chose these fabrics, guesstimated yardages and planned to make the other idea.  By the time I got home, I was doubting the fabric choices completely and wasn't sure the pattern I'd chosen would work.  By the time the fabric was washed and ready to be cut into, I'd changed my plan to be this quilt.

And then I had an oopsie when I sewed those green triangles on the wrong direction.  Using the lost-corner technique, I'd sewed, cut and pressed before I realized what I did wrong.  Well...so they're flower centers now, not the pinwheels in the original.

I was still wary of the border, worrying it looked dated (though it was new!), but I love how the whole thing came together.  And I think the butterflies I decided to quilt into it are perfect.

The pattern is called "Orange Slice" from the book Me and My Sister's Fun Quilts.  I made it smaller than the original by a few blocks, but it finished about 50" square.

For the picnic, I brought dessert:

I found a recipe for these online and thought they'd be perfect for the kids.  Easier said than done...fruit roll-ups stick to everything!  But they're pretty good.

And with this being a long weekend, I volunteered to sew a charity quilt for my quilt group.  Fabric donated is matched up and cut into kits, then distributed to sew.  I spent quite a few hours Saturday and today working on this and now the top is done.

I could have made the effort to get the whole thing in the photo, but you get the idea.  Definitely not any fabrics I would have chosen, but it's together.  The floral is a polished cotton, combined with a stiff pink, a nice prewashed mauve and a very coarsely woven, thin muslin.  The goal was a simple pattern and I'm thankful for that, since the variety of textures in fabric gave me enough trouble.  It's twin-ish-sized and I'm not sure if I'll be asked to quilt it or not.

I have tomorrow off too, so we'll see what trouble I get into then!  For now I think I'm going to read and snuggle the kitties for a while.  (It's so nice to have an extra weekend day.)

Happy quilting,

Katie