TradMod für Lilli FERTIG!

I finished my very first customer quilt today and am very pleased with the results. My German customer, Beate, contacted me a couple of months ago to sew together a memory quilt for her daughter from her daughter's baby clothing. I was totally honored to create such a lovely quilt for Lilli. I will post more pictures after the family receives their quilt, so they are the first to be totally surprised.

Beate decided on a traditional on point pattern with a 4 x 5 layout. I showed her a couple of sketches with light pinks and grays, but she wanted something really bright and cheery. I found the main fabric "Apple of my Eye" from the Quilted Fish for Riley Blake and added fabrics that matched, one white with pink polka dots from Tilda. I found a really pretty pink flannel from Debbie Mumm for Moda and used as the cuddly backing.

I knew I needed about 20 pieces of clothing to make a nice quilt and sorted out mainly the light pastels and white fabrics. These were going to be the center of my blocks. I backed all of the baby clothing patches with a stabilizer to keep the jersey fabric from pulling. To really set the out baby clothing fabrics, I used the bright fabrics all around.

The quilt went together rather easy after everything was well planned and decided. We wanted to keep it simple (kiss) or simple, easy, practical (sep). I asked a good friend and long arm quilter, Brigitte to quilt it for me. She came up with a really beautiful design totally in line with the theme - apples and love. A picture of the quilting will have to wait a while though -  until my customer receives her quilt. I am really impressed with Brigitte's quilting. She always has the greatest ideas and is a true quilt artist and fabric designer if you don't already know that.

I finished off the quilt with a striped binding from the Sugar and Spice series from Riley Blake using my typical 3/8" width double fold binding and closed with a running stitch. Even though this takes the longest time, it is worth that tedious effort. The only other way to close the binding, that I like, I found via Pat Sloan using a buttonhole stitch to close from the front. I use this mostly on baby blankets or "Krabbeldecken."

So, this very bright and cheery memory quilt will find a new home over the holidays. Every one of my quilts is a piece of me and I am honored to give this one to a family who values handmade blankets.

Thank you for commenting on my post. It encourages me to continue, especially on those overwhelming overcast days. I love and need the sunshine!!

Yours truly,
Karen