The Niece Quilt

I had so much fun making this quilt!  It came to be known as the Gorgeous Quilt in my mind.  Cause it is.  So way gorgeous.  

My inner hand sewer loved the english paper piecing aspect.  I hand sewed each hexagon and then hand sewed them all together into a quilt top.  I think I used eleven or so different fabrics.  I let my sister pick a main fabric and obviously she picked her colors, and then I got to choose the rest.  She choose the coral/peach colorway of Les Amis.  I did run the idea of hexagons by her, I think.  

One thing I really wanted to do was jazz up the binding.  It had to have something special going on, just plain binding didn't feel right.  So I went jumbo ric rac.  Seriously, this is inch and a half ric rac.

 It was beyond nerve wracking to actually assemble the quilt.  I was so afraid I would ruin my gorgeous hexagons with a slightly off seam allowance.  But I went all OCD on it and it turned out perfectly.

I like to sign my name somewhere hidden.  Usually just my initials and the year, but my sister requested this one be signed Aunt Amanda rather than AKP.  I signed my name in the shadow at the base of the tree (you can see it in person) and carved my sister and brother-in-law's initials in the tree.  (Interesting tidbit: my husband and I knew our brother-in-law before my sister did.  She went to grad school where we had done undergrad and he was still there.  When she told us she'd gone on a date with him, our immediate reaction was "that'll work.")
Because she's my sister, and I'm the crafty one, I also made her a mobile. And a crib sheet, but that's not as exciting a pic seeing as I don't have a crib to model it on.  I used single sided scrapbook paper for the most part.  I used various grays, it's super cute when it twirls.  I also used a double sided peachy paper.  I dare you to find peach scrapbook paper.  Along with the scrapbook paper, I added some book pages.  I had already gutted a Nancy Drew and my Shakespeare book, so they found their way in.  Just some introductory pages of Nancy Drew, you know, the ones where we meet Hannah and Nancy drives off somewhere in her blue roadster.  From the Shakespeare I used the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.  I sewed the circles together on my machine and just tied them to the metal hoops from Micheal's.  There's an inner circle staggered in the middle to get the cutesy tapered look.

The mobile is bigger than it looks.  My husband and I both thought it was a bit much, but decided for my sister, a bit much will always be our goal.  That's just how she rolls.