I started this on Superbowl Sunday 2012, intending to have it done for when Susie moved into a big girl bed out of her crib. But she moved into a toddler bed and then shared the full size bed with her sisters. Finished it a mere six years later, just a month after she moved onto the top bunk (and a twin sized bed for the first time in her life!) after getting back from Iowa.
Amy Kidder helped me pick out the initial fabrics at a quilt store in TO on our first Superbowl Sunday in California. The color scheme and 30’s flour sack prints are supposed to coordinate with Elizabeth’s big girl quilt (the stripe fabric was actually extra from her quilt!). The blocks are supposed to make you think of Black-Eyed Susans (Susie’s “theme” flower, for obvious reasons). I started the quilt years ago and then just packed it away in my bloset because it was sooooo much trouble getting everything out to sew while we lived in that tiny house in TO. I pretty much forgot it after Janie was born. But in packing up our house for our renters last summer, I rediscovered the pieces of the quilt. I brought everything to Iowa, left my sewing machine up and my blocks planned out on the carpet, and worked on a block every time Derek and I put the kids to bed and watched Veronica Mars. Cammy and Grandma helped me pick out the sashing/border and backing fabric in Columbia this Christmas, they helped me arrange the blocks, and then I started and Grandma finished piecing the top together before sending it off to be quilted by Janet from church.
Now onto Janie’s quilt, which is going to be scrappy (no trips to a fabric store required), paper doll pattern-themed (Brenda gave me a sample block to use years ago, so I just have to go through my stash and find it), and full-sized (because Janie’s going to be sharing that bottom bunk with one of her sisters for at least 10 more years, and we don’t need another twin quilt)! Now that the girls are big enough to help, maybe I’ll get the next quilt done faster.