Comfort and joy

I find that there is so much joy to be derived from making things for babies - as I sit on my sofa in my sewing and knitting corner I can be transported into a world of reverie, not only imagining into existence something cosy for the little newcomer but also re-imagining the past of my own big babies who have so recently deserted me.

An appley quilt

Sitting stitching, I find continuity in a world of change, and in the room where once I sat with my arms and hands full of baby and toddler and yearned for some time and space to think, I now sit in the quiet and stitch some comfort to enwrap another little soul marching into the future.

Today I finished this baby quilt and together with the satisfaction of completion, another thing ticked off the list, there was also something more. I had had a few uncertainties during the quilt's creation; I wasn't quite sure if it was going to work; I very nearly started unpicking, and even considered making something quite different entirely.

But as I looked at the quilt I suddenly realized that yes, this had worked: I had made a present that was full of joy as well as warmth. What I had in my head had come out in the stitches.

'It's a good job that the baby turned out to be a girl', said Princess Bunchy, 'it wouldn't have been quite right for a boy.'

Serendipity, perhaps, but I did try to make the mix of red and blue, and the mix of motifs ungendered. I wanted a quilt with plenty to look at, a quilt full of the potential for story with animals and plants and matryoshkas stumping through the magic woods.

Matryoshkas stumping through the woods

The squares are 5in finished size (5.5in cut) to accommodate a complete motif from the red and blue fabrics with the matryoshkas and dala horses in lacy squares - these were fussy cut, which was more time consuming, but the only way to deal with this sort of fabric, I think. (The fabrics all came from Fabric Rehab, but so long ago that I can't remember their names - apart from the apples I think they are Japanese ones.)

I did lay out all the squares before joining them because I have come to the conclusion that I am congenitally incapable of random piecing. Such is my love of order and almost symmetry that I can't leave such things to chance.

As with my last baby quilt, I did the binding by turning the backing to the front, and hand quilted in the ditch along the seam lines.

I have come to the conclusion that I really enjoy sitting and hand sewing like this - once again it is something that can be done sitting on the sofa in the evening whilst chatting, and I do like my sofa time. Machining for me is a daylight task, and if I started talking too much I would probably stitch myself to the quilt as an extra bonus.

The sofa is calling me, calling me . . .

Now I can wrap up my little bundle of comfort for the new little bundle of joy with a happy heart at the thought of sending my stitches out into the world - it has been a good weekend.

And next week I am going to tell tales of the most wonderful muffins and the vagaries of natural pest control - I am sure that you are beside yourself with excitement.