"Happy Prints" Beginnings Quilt

The summer my middle daughter turned ten, I issued a challenge:  the girls needed something to occupy their energies during the vacation months so they would have something to show for their time, and I suggested they make quilts.  For the tops, they would need to use things from our family’s stash, and they would do all of the sewing themselves.  By the end of the summer, they would have something they could use right away or put in a trousseau for their future lives.  I was willing to cut, to instruct, to pin, and to help press; but the object of the endeavor was for them to do the work of stitching.

The stipulation that no new fabrics would be purchased is reflected here.  Nearly every inch of the butter-colored Kona background yardage was used.  The quilt is not big enough to be the coverlet of a queen size bed; it could have been made larger with the inclusion of additional borders, but by the time it got to this point, she was ready for the project to just be over!

Her younger sister chose to make a quartered nine-patch.  Its six-inch squares in soft blues, greens, yellows, and lavenders made it work up fast.  It was machine quilted in a couple of hours, and it has been used regularly for years.  But the middle sister wanted hers hand quilted and preserved for later.  The problem was that she could not decide how it was to be quilted.

We put the quilt right up anyway, outline-stitching the squares that make up the border, but no decision was made by the time we finished that.  The quilt stayed on its frame for several weeks, but it was eventually taken down and stowed.  She likes to make her own decisions about things and I considered it foolish to rush her.

This spring when the quilt returned to the frame, I was armed with several stencils.  My daughter selected the most feminine --- and the most time-consuming --- of the choices, but I agree that it worked well with the quilt.  She insisted that only her and my stitches should be included, but grew discouraged about her own stitches.  This daughter has tomboy tendencies and the quilting reflects this in the long diagonal lines that connect the colored squares in the quilt’s corners.

Finished?  Yes, at last!  It was completely quilted, but choices about binding took time….