The Doll Quilt

Big Brother (and by that I mean my oldest, not a creepy Orwellian government...) headed off to first grade today.  Last year when he went off to Kindergarten, I was NOT AT ALL PREPARED for how much the girl would miss him.  Sure she had teensy man, but he takes marathon naps and wasn't really even around to play with.  I think I spent more time playing dollhouse and kitchen that week than the rest of my life. 

So this week, first grade, I was prepared.  She and I were gonna make a doll quilt.  I had visions of stretching it out the whole week. I envisioned using the time after littlest man goes to sleep but before she does.  It's tops an hour a day.  My plan was choosing fabric, choosing a block, playing on the design wall, and then finally piecing and quilting.  Ha!  Try telling that to a four year old.  Today, in about an hour, we made a doll quilt.

And by we I mean me and her "sewing hand."  Apparently she has one.

 It also comes in handing during pinning. 

 That little hand was glued to me most of the time.  And she felt the need to push down so that she could really be a help pushing the fabric through the machine.
When it came to sewing, I got some major flak about the whole right sides together thing. She insisted everytime that I was doing it inside out and needed to make it "outside right." Everytime.

My view alternated between this and this.

 She had wanted a pink binding but by the time I got to that point her attention span was working in my favor.  We opted to skip a binding.  Which worked out really nicely for me as it turns out my daughter only knows hand quilting.  Go figure.  Here I am ruing the day I became a hand quilter. 

 But we finally finished it.  Here it is in all its glory.

 It's 17" or so square.  The star in the center is an orphan block.  I had entertained the idea of making a quilt of various purple stars.  I so don't have the tedium tolerance for making the same block over and over again.  I do it for my boys quilts, but that's it.  She choose the surrounding fabric herself.  The back is pieced from various purple scraps.  We use a lot of purple around here.

 I'd say PJ Sparkles looks pretty cozy.  Sure beats her last 15 years in my mom's garage and our basement.