Gift Quilt

Some good friends of ours recently announced that they were expecting a third baby for their family, and after two boys, this one is going to be a girl. My mind instantly went to the quilt top I had made last  year, which you can read about here. I've been working through material in my stash, and it felt good to get this quilt top out and get it ready to gift, knowing it will be going to a lovely home of it's own.

Because the quilt top was done, it was a fairly easy job to finish it off, although quite time consuming. I decided to hand quilt it, as I still don't have a walking foot and results with machine quilting have thus far been questionable. I had recently read a tutorial by Meredith at Olivia Jane Handcrafted, which was pretty encouraging, so I took the plunge.

Overall, hand quilting is pretty fun, and it does not feel time consuming at all, because you can do it while you watch/listen to a movie or whatever. Two birds, one stone right? After quilting, which took a good two movies, a I also hand bound it with some self made bias binding tape, using a tutorial from Make it Love it. The binding took nearly as long as the quilting I think, but man does the quilt look so swish now.

These photos are so much nicer than the shots I took of just the quilt top last year. You'll see what I mean, if you look at the original post, about the color difference. I recently read a post on gifting a quilt and how you should always make sure to take photos of it, and I'm glad I have because even as this quilt goes to a new home, it's still special to me.

Mum donated me some fabric for the back of the quilt, again in the name of using up what's on hand, rather than going out to buy more. She had this lovely Japanese cotton bear print in her stash for I think at least five years, with no real idea of using it soon. The creamy background color suited the front of the quilt quite nicely, and matched the binding fabric too. I also figured if my friend gets sick of pink, it's a nice break for her to turn it over.

I embroidered the words "Love Wins" onto the quilt top, because it was made from a time when I needed to remember that God's love would always win, and I wanted this quilt to reflect that. Parenting is hard, and adding another child to the mix is absolutely going to bring lots of joy, and just as many tears. I know the family who will receive this know God's love already, but we often need the reminder.

Goodbye beautiful quilt, as you go on to live your life, may you remind people there is good in the world, even as a baby pukes on you.