Children's Books Quilt

this is the block that inspired the quilt. i inherited this lone block, with templates (no pattern), from my quilty friend susan (you can barely see her pencilled remarks on the white fabric--it says 'Georgia Bonesteel's Bright Ideas for Lap Quilting 10"' ) as you can imagine, this was a pain to cut--i'm so not into templates--but i guess i was in the mood to just go for it.



lots of pinning too for the curvy parts. curves are truly not as hard as it appears to piece--you do need to match up the crucial points--beginning, middle & end, go slowly, and it helps an awful lot to have a needle down button on your machine.


here's the whole thing.





sorry--the photos are a little blurry--here's a close-up. the hello kitty fabric is from japan--back in the day when HK fabrics weren't so readily available here. the mustardy yellow book right next to HK, is from a class i took, where a lady brought her "uglies" (ugly fabric) to share with everyone! i wouldn't make a whole quilt with that fabric but it's interesting to spice up a quilt with a dash of color that might not be your taste. the great thing with collecting conversation prints is that i can remember when/how/why i bought/acquire almost every piece.


the border fabric is really cool (and the background fabric is the same but in a beige colorway). i forgot the name of it but i got it on sale at Hancocks-Paducah a whiles ago. i still have a piece of it which i'll make into a book bag one of these days.






but the sashing fabric is even better--see my name in it?--how cool is that! i think i also got this from Hancocks, or off the internet, so i didn't even know my name was printed on--i just wanted the text--bonus :-)

here's the back of the quilt--all the pieces leftover from cutting out the parallelogram book covers; a couple of book blocks that didn't make it to the front; susan's lone block; some scraps and a Paddington Bear panel that i've had for over 10 years i think--but never had the opportunity to use. it sure feels good to finally use that up!

i was a children's librarian in my former life and this quilt was a lot of fun to make. it's not the most coordinated of quilts--the whites and the tans and the black/whites don't quite mesh together but i think it's scrappy enough that it's not too noticeable. i envision my kids cuddling up under this quilt while reading stories (though it's probably more realistic that they'll be cuddling up under this while watching tv :-)