She turns six next week and this is HER quilt. She informed me this fall that, "Daddy has a special quilt, you have a special quilt, and Leah has a special quilt... everyone has one but me!" She was 100% correct. Bad mommy. :(
I made Leah one when she turned five because she had outgrown her baby blanket and her feet stuck out the end when she tried to cover up with it. Now it's Grace's turn (and we're focusing on the fact that she's grown soooo big, not on the fact that Mommy got a year behind on this one somehow). Her old Kitty Blanket is way too short and has seen better days. This new, bigger, made-just-for-you quilt will keep her cozy warm for a while to come.
I tried to make the quilts similar in style and size (lest we have any arguments about someone's being bigger or 'special-er'). You can see Leah's quilt on the Finished Quilts tab. My inspiration for the quilt's background was this quilt from Pinterest. I don't think I quite hit the mark on this attempt - I think my colors are a bit too saturated. I'll try again on a smaller project. Its still pretty, though. Grace specifically requested pink so I went a bit heavy on the pink shades.
The embroidery is all done by hand and portrays things that Grace loves, characteristics she has, or things about her that are special to me.
She loves cats....
... her favorite snuggle is named Cutie
(but was named Meow for years before undergoing a name change about a year ago)...
...this kid sings ALL DAY LONG...
... she loves her Lord and shows it boldly...
... has closed every prayer with these words since age 4...
... will do anything for a snuggle...
... and her six year old handprints.
I quilted it by machine for sturdiness. I expect it will get washed often. I used cotton batting for the same reason, plus to make it an all-season quilt.
Every quilt gets a label, of course.
Grace has seen the quilt background before it was embroidered. She watched the hexagons come together into the cool background and knows I've been working on the 'secret part' after she goes to bed at night. In fact, every once in a while she'd tell me, "Don't forget to work on my secret quilt tonight Mommy!"
She will receive it next week and I'm sure she'll love it!
Details/notes to self:
1. Hexagons are 4 inches finished. Cut with acrylic template.
2. Pieced one edge at a time, stopping at each quarter inch seam mark. It worked well but I wouldn't want to do a big quilt of hexagons - kind of putzy and tons of thread trimming.
3. Quilted by machine first, then embroidered to avoid quilting over the embroidery. I'm not sure I'd do it that way again - this method meant lots of burying of embroidery threads so as to not leave knots on the back and in the end most of the motifs ended up being within a single hexagon anyway. Such things happen when you design on the fly! :)
4. I am still working on the perfect blend of quilting and embroidery. The embroidery motifs have to be small enough to easily and uniformly quilt around, but not so small that they are hard to see. I do love to combine the two techniques, thats for sure.
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