Sallie's Baby Quilt

My "other" daughter, Sallie, is having a baby.  Seems like just last year, she and Laura were in high school.  They've been best friends since grade school and still are.  I made Sallie a baby quilt for her little girl.  Sallie likes lighter colors like pastels.  Since I'm more likely to use hot pink, orange, lime green and bright teal, together with a hundred other colors, this quilt was so far out of my comfort zone.  It was fun to do, but I questioned myself at every block.  Oh, and Sallie doesn't care for pink, so the quilt has more teal and green that she does like.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that in five years, everything she buys is going to be pink and purple.  Everything.  Sorry, Sallie.

 This is with the fluorescent lighting in my studio.  Below is at the shower Sunday.  It was in a grade school cafeteria, and there's another window to the left of Sallie.  Regardless of where they stood, somebody's head was going to be backlit.  Sorry, Marc.

There were lots of friends and family there.  The gift table was overflowing.  Sallie kept pulling adorable little outfits out of bags and boxes.  I told her she has more baby clothes than a Penney's.  I've never seen so many onesies, booties, matching socks, jackets, and sleepers in one place outside of a department store. This will be the best-dressed baby ever.

I was going to do a full-strip quilt, but changed my mind after I bought the fabric.  I bought six different fabrics and used three of my own.  Each block has one of all nine fabrics.  I did log cabin blocks with a larger center.  The logs are cut 2" wide.  The center is cut 4" square.  The first strip, I cut 4" wide, cut two center squares from it, then cut it in half for 2" strips.  Then two more strips 2" wide.  Two rounds of logs, and the blocks finished 9.5".

I started out just sewing a strip on and cutting it off evenly after I pressed it over, but it wasn't working very well.  After two blocks, I cut exact-size pieces, about four of every size of every fabric until I knew how many I'd need.  Worked much better.  The block aren't all in the same orientation.  I was much more concerned with the same colors not being next to each other.

I made the top a couple weeks ago at a 5-day quilt retreat.  Up by Hannibal, MO, at a place called Kinderhook Lodge, an hour and a half from my house, in the middle of nowhere.  We saw deer every day.  Ate all our fabulous meals in the dining room.  Had a complete kitchen in our large sewing room.  Everybody had a bedroom to themselves.  Absolute heavenly bliss.  And none of my chocolate-covered cherry jello shots made it back home.  The recipe is on my Nov 13, 2011 blog.

 My non-quilting friends can't imagine why I would want to go to a quilt retreat, and ask what else we did besides sew.  We ate and slept.  Other than that, we sewed.  The other eight ladies are so wonderful.  They've been doing this retreat for many years.  It's my second one with this group, so I'm the new girl.  We'd tell stories and laugh till we cried.  Everybody helped everybody else with any problems and gave advice on colors and fabrics whether it was wanted or not.  My kind of group.

Small world story:  one of the ladies there, who I've known for several years, Sandy, has a boyfriend, Rich, who is a teacher.  He taught school for one year, '69-'70, in my home town of Steeleville, IL, pop. 1600 in '68, at the Lutheran school.  He taught, AND REMEMBERED my brother in the 7th grade.  Steve's now 56 years old.  I didn't know Rich because I'd already left for St. Louis after high school.  Sandy called him, and we talked for about 15 minutes.  He described my brother, tall, skinny, blonde hair, and played basketball (which Rich coached).  Geez, I can't even remember last week!

It's cooling off a little here.  I understand parts of Canada (hi Kim) are having a heat wave.  Hope you're cooling off, too.

Barb