More fabric love and transfers

My mother-in-law popped in to see me over the weekend and brought some fabric love for Pip's quilt. I love the pink fabric with it's design of the trees and leaves and the gorgeous baby aqua blue. There is also a pack of angel transfers because I told her that I haven't been able to find any fabric with angels on it yet that I could add to the quilt, so she got these in case I wanted to add to the embroidery on the quilt. Hmm...ideas ideas! 

I'm not sure where I'll use it yet. Still haven't settled on a design for the shooting star block, but I'm sure it will make an appearance somewhere. Have I mentioned how much I love that pink? Thank you Liz, (best mother-in-law ever).

Fabric, love and fabric love

A couple of days ago, I wrote about healing hearts blocks. Since then a funny thing has happened. 

Annie, my friend in Melbourne is the person responsible for introducing me to quilting. I fell in love with the beautiful baby quilts her mum made her son when he was younger and so I wanted to learn how to make my own. 

Annie and her mum Barbara, a very accomplished quilter who has made some stunning quilts so far are also the people who guided me through my early foray into quilting by leading me astray into my fabric addiction...I mean...by offering gentle encouragement and kind advice. They also happen to be the ladies responsible for introducing me to the Southern Cross Quilters online guild and without them, I wouldn't know what a healing heart block is let alone half the things I have learnt since about quilting.

So I was very touched when Anne offered to make a heart block for Pip's quilt and I promised to send a patch of background fabric to her in the mail. While i was cutting all the background fabric into size this weekend, I cut up a block for Anne too. 

It was a lovely surprise when I asked Anne for her mailing address and got a response asking if she could pick it up in person since she was up from Melbourne visiting family. We arranged to meet for morning tea at Barbara's place today and I had a lovely time catching up, admiring Barbara's latest quilts and talking quilty with them.

Before I left, Barbara pulled bits out of her very impressive stash and offered me some fabric for Pip's quilt! Quilters are usually a very generous and caring bunch, but I was very touched by the offer because it's a special privilege to be allowed to pick pieces from a quilter's personal stash. It's amazing how this project which started off with a simple idea of remembrance has also now played a role in reconnecting me with the very people who started my love of quilting! Talk about coming full circle. 

We sat on the bed and looked through all the different fabrics and colours. In the end, I decided on a yellow fabric which I'm thinking I will use for the star blocks even though I already had another yellow fabric in mind. The yellow fabric has little multi-coloured hearts through it which match the ice cream colours of the quilt so far. I also loved an aqua fabric, also with tiny purple hearts because aqua is the birthstone for March (Pip's estimated due date) and a patch of gorgeous sun and moon fabric which I'm not sure how I will incorporate in yet. 

It's also funny that I was toying with the idea of doing a shooting star block (to symbolise hopes and wishes) instead of a standard star block I'd originally thought of to symbolise hope. The colours in the yellow fabric could easily be drawn out with other fabrics to make the trail of the shooting star and as Barbara suggested, the blue would make a nice border also. 

Before I left, I asked Barbara if she would like to make a heart patch for Pip's quilt and she said yes. She even offered to do needle-turn work (which she hates) if I wanted! Now if that's not love, I don't know what is.

Thank you so much for your contribution to Pip's quilt Anne and Barbara. I can't wait to see your blocks and who would have thought that your quilty influence would someday give me the skills I have learnt from you and since to help me heal a broken heart.

Prep and math

Almost this whole weekend was devoted exclusively to Pip's quilt. My mum's comment on my industrious streak - "If you keep going at this rate, you'll have it finished by Christmas!" may be a bit ambitious, but I'm very proud of how much I got done.

It feels like 80% of what I've been doing up to this point has been prep work. When I sat down and drafted the heart blocks and quilt layout the sums so far worked out as follows:

• 9 x embroidered blocks
• 8 x heart blocks
• 4 x star blocks
• 16 x apple pip fabric blocks
• 12 x 9 patch blocks (hmm...still wondering if this will work)
• All this surrounded by 2 or possibly 3 borders (See what I mean about the quilt's design changing on the fly?) 

So most of the weekend was spent chopping fabric up into patches. All the apple fabric blocks are now ready to go, the background fabric for the heart and star blocks cut and as of last night, the appliqued angel hearts have been vlisoflex-ed on. Vlisoflex is a double sided fusible magical creation that you iron on to hold applique in place until you've stitched it in place. Think double sided tape for fabric!

Each heart has 2 wings, each side of the wing has 3 pieces. So 6 different pieces for the wings alone, per block. I was determined to get the heart blocks ready for stitching if I could by last night, so I worked late into the night laying each piece out so that I could fiddle with arrangements and colours before I settled on the final arrangement. 

Even though in my sketch the hearts are red, in the end I chose a rainbow fabric I found in my fabric stash because it's so pretty and because it's a reference to rainbow babies. This is how Urban dictionary describes what a rainbow baby is: 

A "rainbow baby" is a baby that is born following a miscarriage or still birth.

In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.

The storm (pregnancy loss) has already happened and nothing can change that experience. Storm-clouds might still be overhead as the family continue to cope with the loss, but something colourful and bright has emerged from the darkness and misery.

"We lost our last pregnancy, but now we have a rainbow baby."

Someday when the universe sees fit, we would love to have a precious little baby to love, whether it is Pip returning to us transformed, or a brother or sister to love, the thought of a rainbow baby has a touch of magic to it.

So after fiddling with it some more, I finally decided on a final layout and ironed it all on. 

Excuse the awful overhead lighting, but I couldn't wait till morning to take a photo. I even managed to find a cute pink fabric that had silver glitter all through it (top part of the wings in the heart block pictured below). As my friend Nat said, every little princess deserves a little bit of bling! (even if Pip's bling is woven into the fabric of her quilt).

So here's a line up of the blocks so far. 

I'm quite happy with the way the colours are working together. Can't wait to get started on the blanket stitching on the heart applique. Hopefully the stitches will outline the different fabrics more.

According to the current plan, there are a grand total of 49 blocks in the middle. Which will be surrounded by 2 (possibly 3) borders and finished off with the binding.

Current count of blocks ready to be pieced into the top 17. 

32 blocks to go!!!