I love how all the Oliver + S things I’ve made so far have turned out, but I think my proudest sewing accomplishment so far is the baby quilt top I paper pieced for my sweet pending arrival:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110619443@N04/13022790423/in/set-72157644021865225
While not difficult, it was quite labor intensive (as paper piecing usually is – one short seam, then over to the iron to press, then another short seam, lather, rinse, and repeat ad nauseam). The theme of her nursery is “Australia/Aussie animals” as I have very fond memories of the 3 years I lived in the Sydney area as a teenager, and miss it terribly – hopefully someday in the next few years I’ll be able to take my husband there and revisit some of my favorite places and a few new ones :-). I did not come up with the pattern myself, it’s adapted from a book called “Quilt a Koala” I bought off Amazon, tho I did reduce the number of blocks to make it smaller as it is intended as a crib quilt. The most fun part was choosing all the fabrics! Mostly batiks in the piecing, and I ordered a couple Australian prints from an online US quilt store that imports them to use for the border and backing. It’s currently at my local quilt shop being machine-quilted on one of their long-arm machines, as I didn’t have the time (or experience, as this is my first quilt to do all by myself from start to finish) to hand-quilt it and get everything else done before baby arrives.
In the picture, the quilt it’s sitting on is the machine-pieced but hand-quilted quilt my grandma made as a wedding gift to me and my husband. It’s my most treasured possession, such a masterpiece, and every time we move cross-country it goes in the car with me, not packed by movers in a van. Too precious to risk losing or damaging. My grandma and my mum (and more recently, Oliver + S) are who I learned everything I know about sewing from! I’m so proud to carry on their legacy of quilting and creating, taking pride in the work of my hands 🙂
