blankets & books

Earlier this week I was thrilled to see photos of Kai on the quilt that I made for him. It certainly takes a looong time for packages to get to Australia.

I picked out the fabrics for this quilt shortly after I heard that Kai was on the way. I figured the greens, blues & browns would work for a boy or a girl. Seeing Kai on the blanket now, it seems appropriately boy-ish. I absolutely love this pattern because it is SOO easy to sew. It's called Yellow Brick Road and if you've ever wanted a beginner's pattern to try, I definitely recommend this one. I made it once before, in pink:

As long as you can cut straight and sew a straight line, you can't go too far wrong with Yellow Brick Road. The last time I made the pattern I did it square, this time around I made it as a rectangle which made it a little harder to cram into my little sewing machine.

Being an old pro at this now, I decided to make this quilt one of the thinner style and quilt down each individual square. There is a name for this type or style of quilt. I have no idea what it is. The result is a blanket that can stand up to all kinds of wear and tear and with the slightly larger size, I have visions of a four or five year old Kai cuddling under it while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

One extra piece of equipment that I bought this time around which turned out to be indispensable was a 1/4" quilt foot. Most quilt patterns call for 1/4" seem allowances, smaller than the 5/8" that is used for dressmaking and so clearly marked on most machines. This little $15 foot made it so much easier to sew a straight 1/4" that I will never attempt quilting without it again. As Thomas would say, it is "a very useful engine".


And now, on to the book. If any of you follow MckMama's blog then you're familiar with the story of her youngest son, Stellan. Stellan has a heart condition and his parents were told during pregnancy that he would not survive. God had other plans.

As thousands of people around the world started praying that Stellan would live his Mom asked people to take a photograph with his name in it. At the time she wondered if these images of his name would be the only photos they had of his life. The pictures poured in. Recently Stellan was hospitalized for five weeks while doctors got his heart back under control -- he is doing fantastically well at home now. During that time, one of the blog readers made a book out of many of the photos from Stellan's name gallery. [ a warning to those with slow Internet, this link contains a LOT of photos and may cause your browser to crash ]


As I was looking through the few pages of the book that have been posted online, I saw that the photo I sent it made it into the book. That's my cake on the left. The verse below it reads, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119:103" How cool is that? Stellan's birthday happened to fall on the day after my cake decorating class so I added his name in sugar to the final project we were working on. Who knew it would find its way into a book? Sweet deal :) It has been a good week for all things hand made.