Quilts for Sisters

One of my latest projects that I've actually gotten my act together enough to photograph is a pair of quilts for two little girls in Australia. This is a custom project that I've had for well over a year [eep!], and I'm so excited to finally be able to box these up and ship them across the Pacific.

The girls' mother had her friends and family bring fabric to her baby showers that meant something to them - clothes, pillowcases, sheets, yardage, anything - so that she could make quilts with it. She started cutting thinking she would sew it herself, but after getting a bit overwhelmed with the project she sent everything to me. Since a lot of the fabric was already cut into squares, I thought I'd do a sparkle punch quilt.

The first [pictured above] was for Frankie. Each girl's quilt is laid out pretty much the same and has a lot of the same stars, but a few different ones here and there. Offset at the center is a special block pieced with the girl's name and bits of a t-shirt of their father's [how sweet is that! *tear*]

The back of Frankie's is a beautiful vintage floral seersucker with a pieced stripe.

Here is the front of Emilie's quilt:

For the back of hers, I used a Japanese fabric with cute little houses and cars.

Everyone that saw it asked if they were cupcakes. Cupcakes and cars would be fine too. She got her own version of the pieced stripe:

It was a little interesting and sometimes challenging for me to work with all the different types of fabric in a quilt setting - knits, slippery polyesters, even washcloths. The craziest was a dark red polyester velvet. That stuff knows how to wiggle. But all in all, especially considering no one consulted each other on fabric choice, I think it all goes together surprising well!

One of my favorites was a vintage Sesame Street pillowcase. Cookie monster!

I hope Frankie and Emilie will enjoy their quilts for many years to come!