A Quilt for Addianna

In May, my nephew and his wife had a lovely little baby girl named Addianna. If my sister Anna were still living, this little girl would be her first grandchild.

I wanted to make something special for her. I didn't start the quilt until Addi was a few weeks old, and she's just received it - at around her six-month birthday. I'm sad that it's so late in arriving, but I really enjoyed making it. I think she'll still be able to make use of it.

It's my first real quilt. I've made a few pieced tops that I stitched onto store-bought comforters. This is the first time I designed, pieced, filled, quilted and finished a quilt - although I did it all on a sewing machine - not by hand. I used my mother's 1951 Singer Electric Sewing Machine, Class 15-91.

I have a baby quilt that my grandmother sewed by hand, while she was expecting my mother, her first child. It's yellow and lavender - gender neutral colors - because back then there was no way to know the sex of your baby until her arrival.

I chose fabric patterns and colors I thought a little girl might enjoy. I hope Addi will get lots of use out of this thing.

And here she is, my great-niece and her great-grandma, who just happens to be my mother. (Photo from Addi's mom Caty's Facebook photos.)

Broken Dishes

I have a long, sporadic history of making pieced cotton pillow covers and quilts. I made my first quilt in 1977. In the early 1990s I happened to flip through a copy of A Treasury of Amish Quilts by Rachel and Kenneth Pellman in a fabric store. Inside those pages I discovered the Amish quilt pattern called Broken Dishes, and I've been fascinated by it ever since. I love the straightforward, graphic use of solid colored cotton fabrics that Amish quilt makers employ. And Broken Dishes is barely a pattern at all - the order of the triangles is the only requirement. The color arrangement is random - or so it seems. As you can see below, I made considerable effort to orchestrate the arrangement for this pillow.


Here are the triangles, cut from 2" squares, laid out on the counter. I spent quite a bit of time moving them around until I was satisfied.


The finished top. I think I managed to keep all but one row in the desired order! I adore the fact that a mistake like getting the pieces out of order is easily incorporated into the whole.


Here's the cover stuffed with a 20"x20" down & feather pillow insert. Hey, what's that black fuzzy thing on the right side?


Oh . . . it's my little helper, Miss Bettie!

This pillow was a gift for my dear friend D. It looks really nice on the blue couch in her office.