This one’s a keeper!

 When I rearranged my sewing room after last year’s revamp I was careful to label every box of scraps, ribbons, threads etc. As you might imagine, many things came to light, some of which I didn’t remember buying or being gifted.

I’m always on a mission to use scraps and for some while I’ve been making small quilts for donation: two sizes for our local hospital’s Maternity Unit and a slightly larger size for Project Linus.

Last week I decided to make a Happy Blocks quilt for a Project Linus quilt and whilst I was rummaging in the appropriately labelled box I found a piece of fabric measuring about 12.5” square. I consisted of 6 rectangular pictures of nursery style characters, in muted colours. An ideal candidate for a small Maternity Unit quilt so I set to work cutting the pictures apart and framing them with strips from the Happy blocks box. Then I fiddled about deciding how to arrange them..... 3 rows of 2 pictures or 2 rows of 3 pictures? I decided on the latter then went back to my stash to look for suitable sashing fabric. I found a lovely mottled turquoise piece (another “find” during my mammoth sorting out last year). Again I have no idea how it came to be in my stash but it was just the piece I needed. 

Then I had to decide on borders and thought of a bag of small HSTs I had tucked away. The members of one of the groups I belonged to realised I loved scraps and one lady regularly gifted me bonus triangles. About three years ago I started pairing them and trimming into HSTs measuring 1.75”. I sorted through these and paired them into little pyramids and used them for a narrow border to frame the sashed picture  blocks. I was aiming for a little quilt measuring 24” square so I added another border of the mottled turquoise fabric. Back to the stash I went and found a piece of fabric I recently bought was just the job for backing and binding. It’s a pretty turquoise with tiny white bows scattered all over.

I machine quilted it, the best I’ve ever managed I think. I had recently watched a Pat Sloan video when she mentioned a book about machine quilting using a walking foot. This is what I use when machine quilting  but I’m not very adept so I treated myself to the book.

I intend to try some of the more complicated designs in future quilts but I’m happy with the straighter lines and more even stitches that I achieved in this little quilt.

So a few photos of the finished project:

I showed it to my husband and he said he thought it was one of the nicest quilts I had ever made and I agreed with him. I said I was going to donate it to the hospital but that I did love it. John said you should keep it, so that’s what I’m going to do!  I have sorted out two packs of fabrics and scraps to make two more little quilts to replace this one, so that’s my next two projects kitted up.

I’m so pleased that I decided to give myself permission to keep this. I think I’m going to call it “In the Nursery”.