When Things Come Together

Mailed Breagha's Berenstain Bears lap quilt over a week ago. Today, I was out shopping and quite by accident, came across some Berenstain Bears books. Purchased these three for Breagha.

But, of course, the one book that made me really happy was Mama's New Job, and guess what Mama does.....she quilts!  It would have been a perfect book if we could change Mama to Grandma, but I'll settle for a book about quilts. 

I will need a picture of Breagha, sitting in her chair, with her Berenstain Bears lap quilt and this book in her hands.  What a good day this has been.

Breagha's Lap Quilt

So far, I have done two doll quilts for Breagha and loved doing them as it gave me a chance to practise free motion quilting.  The other day, my daughter sent me a photo where Breagha was sitting on the couch, using a doll quilt for a lap quilt.  It was so sweet but seriously not big enough to give good coverage.

So....I spent a day or two thinking of a lap quilt for Breagha.  Just recently I bought a yard of Moda's Berenstain Bears.  I loved it but really didn't want to cut it into pieces as you would lose so much of the design.  Lightbulb went on and I decided to use it as a panel.  Then, I also had a wonderful gem bundle of greens that I bought on line from Marmalade Fabrics, all Kona fabric. 

And here it is.  It's 35 x 45 (approximate) and is about the right size for a lap quilt for a two year old. 

I'm not a huge fan of using panels for quilts but I have to admit, I just couldn't bring myself to cutting up this fabric and losing any of it. 

Then, on to my practise run of machine quilting.  It just went so smoothly and all the starts and stops were knotted and buried and the tension was bang on so no messes to contend with.  I started this early in the morning and couldn't stop until I put the last stitch in the binding late last night. 

And here is a view of the back. 

I hope my little grandaughter gets as much pleasure from this quilt as I did in making it for her.  An added bonus is that it is definitely too small for the Quilt Thief to use. 

A Quilt for Fraser

My grandaughter, Breagha, has a little friend named Fraser.  Fraser inherited Breagha's old picnic quilt.....a quilt that is about 20 years old and has been very well used.  I was mortified, yes, mortified that my daughter, Michelle, did not dispose of that old relic and actually found a home for it at Fraser's house! 

Upon hearing of the above transaction, I immediately started on a brand new quilt for Fraser.  Today, I finished my quest.

Used a free pattern by Karen that owns a quilt shop called Red Rooster Quilts in Dublin, OH.  She simply calls it a Charm Quilt Pattern and it was easy peasy to make.  Thanks Karen!

Started out with 3 of my favorite charm packs:

I treasure these charm packs so I don't use them lightly.  Of course 3 charm packs weren't quite enough so I added in various other "kid friendly" scraps I had and made the quilt 50 inches square, the right size for little people.

It definitely has a scrappy look and feel to it but a child can spend a great deal of time playing I SPY and finding all sorts of interesting things.  Bordered it in a mint green and used a dark green for the binding.

Backed the quilt in white, perhaps not the best color for a little boy but it just seemed to work best.

Now to fold it up, package it and ship it off to Scotland.