A Quilt for Brinley-Blüe

I have been working on a project for the past little while and now that the quilts have been received, I am so happy that I can share them with you.

I have made four memory quilts for 4 children who lost their father last year. Their mother approached me last fall and we have worked together to make these wonderful keepsakes.

The quilts have so much meaning and detail that I decided they each deserve their own blog post so this will be the first of four posts.

Brinley-Blüe is 5 years old, and the youngest of the family.  Her favourite colour is purple.

When I first met with Blüe's mom Nancy, she had separated all of  Kevin's clothes into piles of different colours. This pile had a lot of striped shirts so we added a pair of grey shorts.

just the beginning...

Nancy wanted a different pattern for each quilt. She wanted each one to reflect the personality of the child it was going to.

the completed quilt top

I brought her to our local quilt shop and we had a great time picking out borders, backings and filler fabrics for each quilt.

For Brinley-Blüe's quilt, we added the lovely mauve for the border and I used it for some of the triangles as well.  I also added a grey polka dot and a grey and black print.

Blüe's dad loved to wear Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and Kenneth Cole shirts so I added the tags from the shirts to the patches on the quilt.

I wanted the quilt to have a feminine look to it so I quilted a pattern called Butterfly Vines on it. I love the texture the pattern added to the quilt, and the softness the curves added to the geometric shape of the triangles.

For the backing I used a nice grey polka dot. We liked it so much we decided to use it for the binding as well.

backing

Each quilt also got it's very own personalized label. The label includes the child's name as well as some scriptures, specially picked by Nancy.

Kevin used to sign e-mails and letters: "Here, with a purpose."

Everything was very well thought out and has special meaning. 

the label

The children received their quilts on the 1 year anniversary of their father's passing, along with a beautiful photo book their mother put together. Beautiful keepsakes they will cherish forever.

Stay tuned for the other 3 quilts...

Working on some Christmas quilts

I spent part of my day working on some Christmas WIPs in the hopes that I might get them done in time for The Holidays.

In From The Cold

First I finished putting the borders on my In From The Cold quilt. I am so pleased with this quilt and I can't wait to quilt it! It will hang in my dining room.

Christmas Sampler

Then I pulled out these exchange blocks from my quilt group. I think we exchanged these in 2014.

I had 8 blocks and I want a square wall hanging so I had to make another block. I added the block in the upper right hand corner. Now I am working on the sashing and then I will add a border. This one will hang above the couch in the living room.

I'll share them again when they are done but I thought it might inspire some of you to pull out some WIPs or to work on some Holiday projects.

 

 

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Giving to Charity

My quilting friends and I have been working for the past 6 months or so on some Charity quilts and I wanted to share them with you.

I found out about a home in our city where young women who are going through a hard time can go when they are pregnant or just had a baby.  They have another group of women donating quilts for the babies and I thought it would be nice to be able to do something for the young moms.  So we are making quilts for them to put on their beds and use while they are staying at the home, but that they can then take with them when they are ready to leave.

There are 15 beds at the home so for our first donation we have dropped off 15 quilts.  We wanted to make sure all of the girls get a quilt. 

There are 9 of us participating in various ways in the making of these quilts.  Some donated fabric from our stash, some donated orphan blocks, some pieced the tops, some quilted, some did the bindings.  We all chipped in to buy the batting.  Some of us even had some quilt tops that we didn't want anymore and donated those.

It was fun to see how Alice put Betty's orphan blocks together with Rita's fabric! It's been a great group project and a lot of fun getting rid of some of our old fabrics and UFO's at the same time.

We will be making more and bring them as they are done so that when new girls come to stay at the home, they get a quilt too.

My mom and I dropped the quilts off earlier this week.  The ladies who work at the home were so happy with our donation.  They are going to let the girls pick their own quilt, so they can have something they like.

It feels so good to give! I highly recommend it if you can do it too.

A Princess Quilt

When my friend saw the Princess quilt I made last year, she put in an order for me to make one for her new grand daughter. So we talked earlier this year and she said she wanted it for the baby's first birthday.

Her birthday is today and she is having a tea party with her friends and I hope she will love her Princess Quilt!

When I laid out the blocks to assemble the top, my 8 year old was quick to point out that Tinkerbell is NOT a Princess! But I just had to include her in the quilt because my daughters were big Tink fans and this little girl is only 1, so we don't yet know who her favourite will be! Right?

This quilt is the size of a lap quilt. So she will be able to use it on her bed when she graduates to a toddler bed. That's what Grandma wanted.

I bought the patterns for the blocks from the Etsy shop called Chi Town Stitching.

The hardest part was picking the fabrics.

I am sure she will love her quilt for a long time.

 

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Retreat!

I went on a quilt retreat last weekend! Oh it felt good to get together with some Quilty friends to share patterns, tips and tricks, recipes, but it felt especially good to get some work done on some WIPS.

First I finished the Vintage Quilt I've been working on for the king size bed we got last Spring.

Vintage quilt

I used fat quarters from the Nordika fabric line by Jeni Baker for the blocks. The background is a solid white, and the border is a grey Modern Background Essentials by Zen Chic. I'm looking forward to quilting it!

I also started putting my In From The Cold quilt blocks together and got the first borders on too. But I didn't get a picture so I will keep you in suspense until the top is finished.

Here are a couple of the quilts my friends finished while we were there.

Betty's Tablecloth Quilt

Elaine's Ribbon Box Quilt

Charity Quilt

There were many more great projects but these were the only ones I got pictures of.

It's always good to have a little vacation from home and get to work on some sewing for me. It was just a great pick me up. And I got some great inspiration from my friends as well!

 

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