Thursday, February 04, 2010

Dot gets a "Dot" Quilt


Wow, its been a long time since I've had done some serious sewing, but with some help I managed to whip up a quilt for our quilting friend Dot's 90th birthday. Dot is a prolific quilter and over the years has given countless quilts to Odyssey House in Hampton, NH. I don't remember how I came up with the idea, but I thought it would be fun to make Dot a quilt of dots.


Last spring I stumbled on a wonderful quilt from a block swap on about.com using the bricks and cobblestones pattern. I had a wonderful pile in my stash of polka dot fabric from several Keepsake Quilting medley's that I got at Christmas from my sister-in-law. Cutting up the fabric into 2.5" strips, I joined an open sew group on a Saturday and pieced together most of the blocks. I made a baby quilt with some of the brighter ones.


Funny thing is that I just remembered I was at a retreat with Dot when I pieced this top. The owner of the Inn let us tack batting up for a design wall. I placed each block on the wall thinking I would only have to move a few. WRONG! Sitting a few tables back, Dot started "instructing" me as to which blocks to switch and didn't stop until she was satisfied. After piecing the top I brought the ladies to Little Lamb Quilt Shop for some fabric shopping in our PJ's. With the help from my fellow retreaters, I picked out the two border fabrics. With the top completed I sent it home with my friend Terri to be quilted.


Fast forward to Dot's birthday in December, pulling out all the left over blocks I began to square them up. Yes, Virginia, I squared all the blocks up! I could not make a quilt for Dot and not square up all the blocks. Just the thought of not squaring up the blocks gave me nightmares, all of Dot's discussions (lectures) about squaring up blocks were coming back to haunted me. With the squaring up complete, now I play the design wall game. Satisfied with the layout but realizing I'm running out of time I call a few of Dot's friends for some help. The first pass off was to Lynne at McDonald's who puts the borders on. Next is the mother, daughter dynamic duo of Kris (who did the machine quilting) and Pat (who did the binding). WOO HOO...the quilt is done, and what does Dot do? She goes to Florida! We decide to give Dot her quilt at the January meeting of the Seabreeze Quilt Guild.

As you can see Dot loved her quilt.