Woo hoo, my first homemade Christmas gift is done!

I have officially finished a doll quilt for my six year old niece, made to (sort of) match her twin sized Castle Peeps quilt.  I actually wound up having to rip this quilt apart before it turned into what it is now.  I royally screwed up the sashing and then forgot to take pictures of how shoddy it looked, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  It was seriously, heinously bad.


I also wound up scaling down the size of the quilt considerably.  I had started out using Elizabeth Hartman's Mixtape Quilts pattern, but between recutting the quilt blocks after my sashing disaster and then shrinking the quilt to better match the cradle it will be going with, it's turned into a pretty different quilt.  I like how it turned out, all in all.


My sister told me recently that my aunt happened to be in her area, and got a chance to see the quilts I made for my niece and nephew.  I can't even describe how excited that made me.  My aunt is the person who got me interested in quilting, back when I was a kid and my mom would tell me about how my aunt used to quilt.  She wound up getting carpel tunnel syndrome in both hands, and had to stop sewing, so I wasn't lucky enough to receive one of her quilts, but I heard lots of stories about the quilts she made for people.  My sister mentioned that my aunt was quite impressed with how much I'd learned about quilting already, which made me so happy.  It was so good to hear that she was proud of me.  That meant almost more to me than my niece gushing about how much she loves her quilt.


This is one of my first attempts at straight-line quilting, and it was kind of fun.  Great for a small quilt, but I can't imagine straight-line quilting something big, like a bed-sized quilt.  I did gridlines on this quilt, marking them with various chalk and wash-away fabric markers to make sure they showed up while I was quilting.  I've heard about using painter's tape, I'll have to try that next time around.

I'll be linking up with Fabric Tuesday, over at QuiltStory.  Make sure to check them out, I always spot some great inspiration there!

P.S. - I'm being featured on QuiltStory today!  Have you checked their features out before?  They tell the stories behind quilts, which is something I think is really cool.  I love hearing about how someone was inspired to make a quilt, and more than that, I love to read about what a quilt means to someone.  Good reads!