The Gift of Giving

Summer is finally here and it's showing. I haven't blogged since last month. Plus I'm way behind in reading blogs as well. To those of you who haven't seen a comment from me on your blog lately, I'm alive and well and slowly, slowly catching up. Just busy. Summer busy. Good busy.

One of the things that's kept me busy these past few weeks has been family. We were out of town twice for family related things and then had family in town to stay with us.

Last weekend, during the most recent family visit, I had the pleasure of spontaneously gifting a quilt to my sister-in-law Jan.  Let me tell you . . . it felt so good and so right. I've given quilts for charity, babies, holidays  . . .  but they have always been made for that specific purpose. Never have I pulled out an already made quilt and gifted it right then and there. Try it sometime. It's a fabulous feeling.

Jan and I were talking about her newly redecorated bedroom done in various neutral grays. She wanted to add a splash of color to liven up the room. Thinking mostly pillows, we played with several fabrics from my stash as she tried to visualize what might work. The bright warm colors of my Kaffe window covering really caught her eye so we pulled several warm Kaffe prints to look at. She also liked the cool colors of the pillow tops that were made as part of my Cascade pattern.

We decided the best place to start might be by taking photos of different fabric groupings. Then she could view them in the room once she got home. While she went to get her camera, I looked in my quilt storage cabinet for something else and the gray stripe binding of this quilt caught my eye. It had all the pinks, yellows and oranges Jan had been talking about along with a bit of gray. The colors seemed right and the fabrics just said "Jan" to me, so I pulled it out and offered it to her right then and there.

Her reaction was priceless . . . she loved it and was near tears at the thought that I would offer it to her. That alone made the giving feel sooo right.

I found the leftover scraps and we played a little more with pillow ideas. I just may have enough to cobble together a couple of bolster pillows for the bench in her room. If anyone knows where I might find yardage of HighStreet by Moda please let me know just in case I need more.

This quilt was originally made as a pattern test. I wanted to see how a jelly roll would work with the design. I've shown the photos above before but none are nearly as satisfying as this photo of Jan and I with the quilt.  Her dress even matches . . . it was meant to be!

Love you Jan. Can't wait to see your new bedroom.   : )