A Gift for Lilly

I just finished up one of Lilly's Christmas presents.  This fits a twin sized bed.  

This quilt has a double meaning, to me at least.  First, I made it just for Lilly, so it's something that she (hopefully) will be able to use and hold on to for a loooong time. Second, I did this pattern in High School during my Sophomore year.  My grandmother, Jeannette, helped me with it one weekend when she was staying at our house.  She was a quilter herself and did many many of them through out the years (she even made dresses for my mom when she was younger, and made some doll clothes for me one year) Anyways, she passed away in 2001, my Junior year of High School.  I know that she's smiling down on me tonight and enjoying my creations, and proud that I am sharing with my daughter my love for quilting like she did with me.  I wish I had more time with her to learn a few tricks, but I'm picking up some as I go and learn myself. 

The pattern that inspired this design is called "Windmill"  Mine uses 4 fabrics, where I have seen some use only 2 or 3.  Some other examples are here and here.  The blocks are approx 16" square. After doing all the individual blocks, I decided to use an idea that the manager at JoAnn Fabrics in Mason City gave me when I purchased the fabric.  Ok, his words were "Are you making a rag quilt?" and that got me thinking.  So, I did the rest of the quilt in the rag style, modified since my squares are bigger than the average ones.  I used a thicker batting in between the top piece, and then a solid color piece (either in black, white or pink) made a sandwich, and then sewed them together down the middle and side to side.. so a big + sign. then, I sewed it so that on the backside, you don't see the seams/edges, but the front side you do.  Let me tell ya, it was a PITA getting the pattern to match up as closely as possible since the 2 solid colors were back to back. I did not take the time to fray the edges, mainly because I didn't have a chance to buy one of those spring action scissors and my fabric scissors that I have won't cut the 1/2 inch of fabric (they are sharper on the the inside part vs the outside, if that makes any sense lol)  But I figure in time it will fray.  There is a black border around the outside edge that adds another 2 1/2 inches on both sides.