A Grandma's Love

Earlier this year my DIL brought a little box of fabrics and asked if I would consider finishing a quilt her mom had started for our mutual youngest grandson just before she passed away a few months after he was born.  Her mom had only been able to complete the four center blocks before she became too ill to continue sewing.  The pattern was also in the box, called Starring Kitties! from the February/March 2012 issue of McCalls Quick Quilts.  Her mom had intuitively chosen trucks, cars and airplane fabrics for her quilt - a perfect choice for this little guy who is infatuated with all wheeled vehicles!  She also had a wide array of small cuts of coordinating fabrics that we thought she had planned to piece for the back.

My DIL envisioned this quilt to be used more as a play mat for my grandson to play with his matchbox cars and be able to drag around the house, so we chose a flat Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting, and after completing the sashings and borders, and piecing a back, I machine quilted it in a meandering pattern.  Here is the finished quilt, completed earlier this week.  A Grandma's Love created this quilt for our sweet young love-bug, so that is what I've named it, and I hope it is close to what his other grandma had envisioned for our little guy when she started her quilt.

Using the cuts of fabric she had chosen, I pieced a backing of 6 inch squares, and though the Janome occasionally protested quilting over all those seams especially when seams met up on both front and back, the simple meander quilting went quite well.

a closer view of the simple meandering:

A label is now stitched onto the back containing a photo of his grandma holding him the last time she saw him, together with their names and the date.  Now it just awaits our next trip to the city and he will have his new quilt.

My last post before the Bloggers Quilt Festival was of this baby quilt, nearly finished with the FMQ. This one is also completed and has been gifted to a sweet baby boy now two months old already.  My camera did not do this little quilt justice, it's really much nicer seen in person, but this was the best I could do.

close-up of the quilting

and the back

Yesterday, DH and I attended the Genesee Valley QuiltFest, held in Rochester, one of the largest quilt shows in New York, with over 600 quilts on display.  It was a fabulous show, and the next couple blog posts I'll show some of the highlights and our favorite quilts.

Some much needed rain last night and looking threatening this morning, so with luck this will be a quilting day!  Have a lovely weekend!