...same, but different

Towards the end of last year I found out that some friends were expecting a baby and naturally my thoughts turned to quilt. The baby was still very new and so the thoughts were put aside while I started to plan Christmas gifts. A few days later a got a call from a mutual friend hoping to commission a quilt for the same child and we hatched a plan for a joint gift. Then I got another call a little later…could the order be upped to two quilts? It seems there was not one baby, but two.

When we got to the planning stages of the quilt we went through various options - same quilt, same colours/fabrics; different quilt, same colours/fabrics; Same quilt, different fabrics colours. There were positives and drawbacks to them all - the babies will share a bedroom so they had to look OK together, we wanted them different enough to be easily identified different and I, at least, didn't want one to be 'better' than the other - they needed to be equal, but unique as the babies will be.

In the end we decided to use the same prints with variation, different by complementary background colours and the same blocks but in different sizes while making the same size finished quilt. I used a variation of block 1932 on page 244-245 of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

I sent a whole bunch of images to be co-gifter (did I mention that this was a cross border exercise) and then we skyped the fabric purchase (did you know it is easier to turn your webcam to the screen and show and image of a fabric rather than sending a link? I do, now). 

And then I waited for the fabric packages to arrive. One did and then I waited, and waited and waited for the second. It was caught up in the Christmas mail and as each day went by I saw my chance at taking one to Perth for the Christmas break to be hand quilted slipping out of my grasp. In the end I sewed the tops up after I had got home and based and had and machine quilted them in the week before the shower. I machine sewed the binding on both of them on the morning I caught the flight for a weekend away - that included the shower.

The hand sewing of the binding of one was finished, in the recipients house, on her couch with the quilt hidden under another blanket while I was chatting with her and another friend. The second was done on the morning of the shower.

  

In the end I did end up with a favourite, but so did the co-gifter and they were different quilts so I think I met my brief. Especially as mum and dad to be seem to like them both!