Shameless bragging...

About ten years ago I decided I was going to make a quilt. I had to make a special trip to the only quilt shop in London to buy fabric. It was in Hampton Court, and on my way to the shop I saw Hampton Court Palace for the very first time and decided it would be fun to go back one day... but that's another story.

I wanted to make a blue quilt, so I bought oodles and oodles of blue floral fabrics. I wanted to handstitch my quilt... ha ha. That lasted for about two squares, and two months. At that point I realised that my quilt, although pieced perfectly accurately (and it was perfect) was a) going to take forever, and b) looked like someone had vomited blue flowers all over everything. It looked awful. I gave up.

When we moved to the States for some mysterious reason my fabric stash, including the pieces of blue floral vomit, came with me. About six months ago I went to a 'make a quilt in a night' class at church. My good friend Kristie was making a baby quilt for her good friend Jane, and I sat there drooling over her fabric and wishing I knew if the baby was going to be a girl or a boy so I could know whether or not it would be a waste of time to make one the same... I went home inspired and pulled out the blue floral vomit and decided to totally rework it. It was just too blue, and too many different kinds of blues, but after I threw out all the blues except grey/blue tones added some white in for contrast it turned into a totally different quilt, with a recognisable pattern.

I did not hand-piece this. The hundreds and hundreds of little diamonds do not line up perfectly, but I don't care. And when it was done, I had somebody else quilt it properly. I love the quilting, it totally makes the quilt look fabulous. When I picked it up from the quilt lady it looked so good I had trouble believing I had actually made it!



Shortly after Kate arrived Kristie appeared on my doorstep on my birthday with a present of lots of lovely fabric for me. This was intended to be a crib quilt, but it kind of grew, and grew... Kate looks totally dwarfed by it!



Once again I had grandiose plans and decided to hand-quilt it. I am most proud of the leafy vine border...



and I will never hand-quilt anything ever again. I had calluses on my fingers for weeks! It just takes too darn long.

I had both of these projects on the go at once, and they both came to an end within a few days of each other. It has been a lot of work, but lots of fun. Adam wants one now... though I think he is going to have to wait a while. Jeff needs some time off from threads all over the floor and I need some time away from my sewing machine!