My New Project for November -- Marmalade Squares

I really enjoy getting emails from Moda with new "recipes" from their Bake Shop. They are always so tempting.  This month I decided to use one for my 2013 NewFo Challenge for November.  It's the Marmalade Squares pattern by Katie Blakesley.   

I like the collection and the background used in the sample, but this quilt is for a special newborn and I wanted to use leftover scraps from garments I made for Baby's mother Naomi and Aunt Joanna when they were little girls.   I spent nearly all day sewing yesterday, but I just wasn't pleased with how my quilt top turned out -- there is an error in the pattern and mine looked a little unbalanced compared to the photo above. 

I spent a few hours this morning ripping out and re-configuring and ended up with a more visually pleasing effect.

(The color is more accurate in this picture.)  I used leftover fabric from Naomi's wedding quilt so Baby's quilt will be extra special, I hope.

I got the binding made ……

…… and started hand-quilting while watching football with Hubby this afternoon. 

This is the most progress I have ever made on one of my NewFo projects so I am a happy girl.   I'm linking up with Barbara's Linky Party so you can go look at what everyone else has been working on this month!

Love Seeing Baby Quilts Being Used

I was so happy to see this photo on FaceBook this morning!  

I told you about the quilt I made for Naomi in this post.  I am happy to report that Naomi's daughter, Katelyn Anne, has arrived.  She went home from the hospital covered in her quilt.  I am so glad I didn't wait until she was born before mailing it.  How special that she is using it her very first day out of the hospital.  Quilters love to see people using quilts instead of "saving" them!

It's Official . . . . I'm a Doofus

When my friend's daughter, Naomi, was a little girl I made a lot of her clothes.  Because I thought that someday I would make a wedding quilt for her I set aside a 12" square of fabric from a lot of the garments I had made for her.  

When she got married several years ago I made a 4-Patch Posie quilt for her instead......

......and I set aside the fabric squares for a "someday" baby quilt.  When I learned that she is expecting I got out the scraps and started on her quilt.  I looked through my stash to see if I had any larger pieces of those fabrics I had saved and kept finding more and more fabrics that I just knew I had used for her little dresses.  

This is the finished quilt.  I wasn't able to use enough of the fabrics on the front because there were so many, so I used them on the back and also in the binding.  This is the most special quilt ever!  Naomi's baby dress fabrics in her baby girl's quilt!  I even hand-quilted it.

I thought it would be fun to include in this post some photos of Naomi wearing the dresses I made for her.  But when I looked through all my photos, I could only find pics of her little sister, Joanna in dresses out of most of these fabrics.  Hmmmm, I know kids wear hand-me-downs, but why are there so many photos of Joanna opening gifts from me - gifts of little home-made dresses?  Little home-made dresses made from these fabrics?

Yup, I'm a doofus.  Some of the fabrics in this quilt actually are from Naomi's clothes, but a lot of them are from Joanna's clothes.  I didn't figure it out until I had already named the quilt "Memories of Naomi" and mailed it to her, just in time for the baby to arrive in a few weeks.  She was really happy when she received it and thinks it's just beautiful.  But, for some strange reason she didn't mention my great idea of only using fabrics from the clothes I made for her.  (Silly Me!)