The Birthday Quilt

First of all, I MADE this quilt.  Me.  I conquered my queasiness about fabric, and sewed away for five nights straight into the middle of the night.  My mother will be so impressed that  I even located and used the IRON to make this quilt.

Second, nothing about this quilt is straight, whatsoever.  And that's pretty much OK.  The quilt is for The Banana's third birthday, which, in fact is today, since I'm typing this in the predawn hours.

My Grandma Edna made many quilts.  Her sewing was always haphazard and misaligned, but she was always making something to give to special people in her life, and quilts were my very favorite thing to recieve.  She made quilts for all of her grandchildren, for her nieces and nephews, at home and and church to send to people she didn't know who needed a quilt, and she started making a quilt for each of her great grandchildren, until that got a bit overwhelming in her last years.

Noah and Sarah both have Grandma Edna baby quilts, used a bit and tucked away in the cedar chest because they are so, so precious (hand quilted, and yes, very misshapen.)  By the time Hannah was born Grandma was not quilting as much, and that's OK.  The Banana, however, is a child who takes great comfort in blankets.  She's always dragging her "nice blankets" (pieces of fleece with silk binding on the sides) around the house.  She needs a "nice blanket" to sleep with, in addition to about eight other fuzzy and soft other blankets.  If you're sitting on the couch in any season, The Banana will ask if you might like a blanket to snuggle with, and then she'll bring you one or offer to share hers, making sure you're comfortable.  Blankets are a very big deal.

So I decided that The Banana needed her own quilt, and it didn't matter if everything lined up right.  I did, however intend to have a nice pattern to the soft flannel squares, but I managed to mess that up on the third row of sewing, and it doesn't really matter. She'll be excited about the soft quilt (the back is made of a used pink flannel sheet I found at a thrift store) and she'll be excited that the quilt has PINK in it.  The mistakes, all the sewing over places that didn't come out quite right just remind me of Grandma Edna.  Snuggle away, birthday girl!