New Life Inspires Creativity

My dearest friend Naomi had a baby girl yesterday morning! She is perfect! A few weeks ago, I made this baby raggy quilt for her. Little Amy looks so cozy cuddled up in it! I also made a matching dolly quilt out of the left over scraps for her big sister Mia.

Isn't the little ladybug material adorable! And, or course, the pink camo was for her Dad!

 When I went to start working on the quilt, my Singer (only a few years old, and barely used) decided that it no longer wanted to sew properly. The tension was extrememly messed up, and I couldn't figure out how to operate all the new-fangled knobs and dials. Several years ago, my Dad had made a great find at a garage sale, and bought me a really old sewing machine for really cheap. I had never used it before, but decided now was the time to give it a whirl. Boy does she sew! Things were made so much better and so much simpler years ago! The threading and tension adjustments are super easy and she sews like a dream! This may be my machine of choice from now on... unless I need a zig zag stitch that is! 

 I made up the pattern, and am really happy with how it turned out. I used a half meter of six different pink flannels, 3 dark and 3 light. Double sided, I cut 24 rectagles 3x6 inches from each colour. I arranged them from lightest to darkest and then placed them in alternating rows of vertical and horizontal pieces. The result is interlocking light and dark squares.

Here is a shot of each side before the snipping, washing and drying stages. It looks so much better once it is actually "raggy"! The most time consuming part of a raggy quilt is the "snipping" stage. It took me two and a half movies (about 4 1/2 hours) to snip all of the edges!