Christmas 2009 - Part Three (Brandy's Quilt)

I don't think Brandy was real surprised, judging by the expression on her face as she started opening her gift.  Usually when a quilter gives you a gift, and it's squishy -- that's a pretty good tip-off. 

Last year when I started thinking about a quilt for my new daughter-in-law  (And I am only telling you she's my "new" DIL because I don't want anyone to think I waited over 10 years to make her a quilt.  That would be a shameful confession from a quilter!!) I asked Adam what her favorite colors are, and he said, "Black and White."  Only Black and White??    "Yes."  Hmmmmmm.   I noticed that a lot of the tops she wears (with her Black and White skirts and her Black or White slacks) are coral or turquoise, so I decided to use those two colors for just a little splash of an accent color.

I thought the perfect quilt would be one from "Thinking Outside the Block" by Sandi Cummings.   I had made a baby quilt from this book in 2005 and it was one of my favorites.

I wanted this quilt to be ready for Christmas so I sent it to my friend Angela at Quilted Joy.com.  She  does beautiful work, and she came through for me with a great quilting design and in plenty of time! She did interlocking ovals all over it and a very cool design in the borders to pick up on what she saw as pick-up sticks in the connector blocks within the quilt.  Very cool.

                 Here's the completed quilt.

One really neat thing that I did on this quilt (because I love to include "back art" on my quilts) was to make the back one giant transition block using the coral and turquoise batiks from the front.  I was pleased with how it turned out!

Since I mentioned the other quilt I made from Sandi Cummings' book, I might as well show it off now!  I made this quilt per special request for a very special baby who was arriving in 2005.  A friend of my husband's was to become a Grampa so how could I resist?

My friend Barb was teaching from this book at our Guild Retreat in 2005 so it was perfect timing, and I had plenty of fun brights in my stash. I used a great stripe for the border and backing (always a good idea!) and it ended up being one of my very favorite quilts ever.

I got a little off track here, but Christmas 2009 is still.......

......To Be Continued!