Friend's Birthday Quilt

I am happy to share a big finished project today.  My quilt for my dear friend's birthday is all done and was delivered over the weekend (on her birthday, no less).

This project was 'born' two years ago when she turned 38.   I've sewn her small things over the last 7 years - little ditties/wallhangings when her babies were born for example, or I've mended things for her, but nothing major.  So when she turned 38 I told her, "You know what?  When you turn 40, I'm going to sew you a quilt.  A real, full size (vs baby sized), nicely done, just-for-you quilt."  She gladly accepted and that was that for about a year.  When she turned 39 it moved higher on the priority list.  I let her peruse through magazines to show me what she did/didn't like as far as patterns, styles, colors, etc and then give me some direction on fabrics she did/didn't like.

Her 'requests' were:

1. A traditional, classic pattern.  None of this currently popular modern/improv junk.

2.  A definite border to frame the quilt.

3.  Could I somehow incorporate things she likes into the quilt?  Like flower fabric to signify her love of gardening, something juvenile to represent her family, etc.  She wasn't sure exactly how that might come about, but I think I managed to get the general idea.  I did pick what I thought were her 'Top Two' things rather than branching out into gardening, cooking/canning, music, etc.  You'll see what I mean when you see the individually embroidered blocks.

And.... here is the quilt all finished!  

The pieced blocks are pieced on the machine.  I believe they are called NorthWind blocks. 

The white blocks are all hand embroidered.  I traced her kids' hands last summer when she wasn't looking so that part of the quilt was a super-fun surprise.  Thankfully her kids kept the secret.  :)  

Its hand quilted.  Soooo relaxing... its been a while since I've hand quilted a big one and it was very nice to work on.   The making of this quilt went fairly quickly - much shorter than the year I had planned (though that may have something to do with the fact that I didn't start on time).  I pieced the top in late fall through January and hand quilted it between late January and, um, last weekend.  

Here is the theme of the quilt, in the top center block:  

This is the bottom center block:  

And their four kids surround them:  

Meghan is their eldest.  

Hannah is Leah's age and they are good buddies.

Michael is a tad younger than Grace, and even though they are boy/girl they are buddies too because they are both at home right now while their big sisters are off at school.  

Henry is the two year old cutie pie.  

 This is the pieced block: 

I was really happy with how these turned out, which I wrote about in a previous post.
I'll definitely be using this block again in other projects.  

Here is a somewhat underwhelming picture of the back.  Its just a pretty gold-on-white paisley.  Nice and simple and I love how the hand stitching shows up on the back of quilt.  Most of it is in cream thread but some is in dark green to match the front.  

Every 'big' quilt gets my initials and the year I finish it.  This one happens to get the years I worked on it because the kids' ages on the front are their ages in fall of 2012 but I finished it in 2013 for the mom's birthday.  

This is where most of the quilting took place - on my great frame in my great sewing room.  Put my girls to bed, turn on the classical or the 'chick music' and quilt away - what a wonderful way to end the day.  

However, after it was off the frame I decided the embroidered blocks needed a bit more quilting.  They were puffier than the pieced blocks and it looked goofy.  So I used this cool old wooden quilt hoop that my grandma gave me to add some quilted hearts and scrolls around the hand prints.  It worked great and it was fun to quilt a bit upstairs after doing most of the work downstairs in the sewing room. 

So, there you have it!  

As with any project, there are little things I would change or tweak here and there, but overall I am happy with how the quilt turned out and my friend likes it too.  I knew she would.  

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With this giant project off my list I will take a little bit of time to sew some smaller, quicker things.  Some teacher gifts probably.  The girls are asking for 'boy dolls' to go with their girls dolls so that 'they girl dolls can get married to their princes'.  If it ever gets above 45 degrees this spring Leah will need some play skirts.  Quick things like that.  One of these months I need to work on making that sloper of myself so I can start on church dresses for myself.  The next major quilt will likely be to make a duvet-cover type thing for our biggest, warmest, snuggliest quilt but as that will hopefully be put away soon not to return till fall I can brainstorm on that one a little yet.