A gift for a dear friend

**Jennifer, who is awesome and if you don't already follow her you should, featured me yesterday for her Follower Friday!!  Go check it out if you want and show her some love.  And p.s.  I completely forgot to fill out the questionnaire until the day before it was due so I answered the questions in about 5 minutes.  Yep, I'm that good...someone wants to let me talk about me and I procrastinate.  WHAT??  ;) **


Awhile back I showed a preview of a baby quilt I was making for a good friend.  And the quilt has been delivered, so I'm finally back to show it off!!

My friend Toni who is really like my long-lost twin added to their family this August with a sweet baby girl and I wanted to show them some love.  I knew Toni had said she was thinking of an orange and pink color scheme for baby Jill's room, so I went with that.

As I was considering ideas, I remembered the string blocks I'd made awhile back that I hadn't used just yet for any particular project and I busted them out.  And the colors were perfect.  Orange, pink, white and yellow.  :)  I had enough to make the whole quilt out of the strings, but I thought it might be a little too busy for a baby quilt, so I decided to just use some of them and then frame them in Toni's beloved orange.

I told Toni that a lot of the fabrics in this quilt came from some of my early sewing projects once I picked up sewing again as a new Momma and some fabric I'd had for some time.  There are fabrics from my bridal shower, Emma's first dance bag, dresses I'd made for her and the orange comes from the crib skirt in Oren's room.  I thought it was fun to share these fabrics from my babies with her baby.

When it came time to quilt, I just went with a meandering loop FMQ which is good in some places and some places need a little work, but we're all friends, right?  So let's just keep a blind eye to those not-so-good places.

I did add a special addition of FMQ Jill's name on the bottom corner.  I'd never done that before and just went with it on a whim.

And then I bound it with some leftover binding strips I had from previous projects in the right colors.  So...it was a WIP that I removed from the list but turned into a greater project by putting it altogether with love.  I hope little Miss Jill gets lots of playtime and love out of it and that Toni feels the love put into it.

This picture made me laugh because Oren looks like he's standing in a jungle!  Actually he's just in my overgrown flower bed...the kids asked me to leave it like that so they could "tunnel" around in there.  And who am I to say no to less gardening chores??  ha

I always say it, but I am so appreciative to have found this online sewing community full of like-minded people.  We  encourage each other to grow and learn in our chosen hobby(ies), but we are also there for each other to encourage each other through life.  Thanks for being a part of my community.  :)