Miles and Elliot's Quilts

Wow! What a roller coaster! From sick children, to trips to South Africa, to realising that somehow I had ordered too little backing fabric (4 days before Christmas!) resulting in a Friday night train trip to collect more from Annie at The Village Haberdashery (LIFESAVER!), to delivering on Christmas Eve Morning as promised - this first order kept me on my toes! 

Finished and ready for delivery.

It's difficult to know where to begin when starting up on your own, so I took the easy option and put an advert on my local Facebook group and waited. I didn't have to wait long! Within minutes I received a text from Leila. She had been hanging onto her boys baby clothes for 10 (yes TEN!) years in the hope that she would find somebody to make them into memory quilts! 

So off I went to my first Client Consultation. Luckily for me, Leila was super relaxed and also had a very strong idea of what she wanted! 2 non-patriotic Union Jacks! After chatting for a while we decided on colours, quilting style, backing colour and binding...and off I went with a huge box of baby clothes! Let it be said, I somehow overlooked this small detail when thinking about making memory quilts! OBVIOUSLY I am going to have piles of other peoples clothes in my house! hmmmmm...at this point I was still working on our dining room table...not ideal, but hey! 

 After a sketch or 2 and some last minute changes I was ready to start! Cutting squares and ironing on interfacing to each and every one of them! Let it be said, I hate ironing! Seriously. Hate. It! And I must have done it for hours! Just as well I love the rest of the process so very much!

A lovely pile of cut and interfaced

squares. Can you see the pile of scraps

in the background? 

Now came the fun part...sewing together and creating the quilt top! Sew, sew, sew! 

After many hours of sewing and ironing (every single seam has to be ironed flat!)I was ready to create the Union Jack!

Waiting for it's cross.

Each quilt had the initials of it's owner

on the back. The letters were cut from one of their lovely, 
fluffy baby blankets

Finished! - LOVE IT!

As I have said, this first order was stressful, but that was not the fault of the quilts! I loved every second making them. Creating a quilt especially for a particular person is so special and knowing that these clothes had been held onto for so long for just his purpose, made it even more special! 

Enjoy them Miles and Elliot!

x Lisa