A good friend was having a 2nd baby. As I’d made her a quilt for their first baby, I wanted to make one for her second. I also wanted the colours to be different from the first girl’s quilt.
I also made a bag for her big sister so it wouldn’t be all about the new bub.
Both completed in a week!
This quilt went to day care with Eskil so he had something he was familiar with, so they washed it in their industrial machines and dried it in driers. So the colours ran, however I like that. I almost gave up the dream of having a child, so I liked seeing this used.
Despite having no talent or understanding what I was getting into, I decided to design and try to make this:
I drew the block on paper, starting with the centre being dimensions I liked, cut the pieces out, and cut fabric from that. I obviously had NO IDEA. But I enjoyed it.
Before he was born, I knitted 2 hats for Sparky. One I made on double sided needles (first time and figuring it out as I went, as usual), and the other I knitted flat and sewed together. I had no idea what size to make them, so as it turned out they never fit him when it was cool enough to wear them!
But I made him model one:
Here’s 2 quilt tops for quilts for my boy – both started before I knew if he’d be a girl or a boy. Or, indeed, if he would ever come.
They were quilted on my good friend’s big, giant quilting machine, Bertha. This was done less than a week before he arrived, although I thought I’d have another couple weeks!
And here is one of them with my boy:
My notes on the photo remind me that I’d originally imagined something argyle-ish, i.e. to quilt it with red or yellow through the centre of the diagonals. But this was more interesting – reminds me of a jester.
Here’s a terrible photo of the other finished:
They both have a flanelette backing, and at 2 1/2 he still uses them (but will quickly outgrow them).
For some reason I decided to make a lap quilt for my mother in law; it’s green as her carpeting is green. I dn’t seem to have a photo of it finished, but here it is mostly finished. For some strange reason I decided to hand quilt with a different pattern in each large square. No pattern was used.
I started another project – a baby quilt.
I’m not certain what inspired me to do it, but the first quilt I ever made was for a friend who was having a baby. In fact, she was due the day after I was due, however my bub was born too early. So making something that took time felt like my way of telling her it was OK. I do remember that I saw quilt on a bub’s pram near the Hobart library and thought ‘I could do that’. And so it started. . .with this:
I had a friend who was a professional quilter, so I wasn’t going to call what I did a ‘quilt’ as it was so far removed from what she did.
I’d do so much differently now, but that’s what starting out is like.
I’d (obviously) had no instruction and just made it up as I went.
I seem to remember the binding was just single layer with the edged folded in – I tried (often unsuccessfully) to catch both sides at once. Sigh.
