Back in the summer of 2004 my younger daughter, Starr, went to Baghdad for four months and I went to Georgia to be a nanny to her two children. Her husband’s working hours made it difficult for him to handle their household alone. While I was there I noticed their older child was coloring in a Christmas coloring book and as I was watching her, it occurred to me that those designs would make a darling quilt and since she was 11 years old at the time, she could be involved in making it. I asked if she’d like to turn those pictures into a quilt. Her eyes lit up and she said: “Can we?” I told her I thought we could if she was willing to do her part. I asked her to choose her 12 favorite designs that night. The next day we went shopping at WalMart and found a nice heavy white cotton for the blocks. I had studied the 12 blocks she’d chosen and noticed that several of them had candy canes. At WalMart I found a fabric that had a red background and small candy canes. I showed it to her and she said: “Perfect!” After getting the fabrics cut, I took her to the crafts section and we found a set of fabric markers. Back home I pre-washed the fabrics and after they were thoroughly dry, I copied her designs on to the fabric blocks with a pencil. She then painted each of the blocks with the markers—I put folded newspaper under the blocks to absorb any excess paint. After she did the initial coloring, I had her use a fine tip “Sharpie” and draw over all the outlines. This really set off the designs!
When her part was completed, I heat set the designs with a hot iron and proceeded to make the stripping and borders. I had bought enough of the candy cane fabric for the lining on the back of the quilt also. It was nearing my time to return to Maryland so I took the quilt pieces with me and completed the assembly and did machine quilting with my sewing machine at home. I mailed her the quilt a couple weeks before Christmas so she could enjoy it during the holidays.
The quilt is pictured above and below is our Michaela when she was 13 years old and an 8th grade student visiting Maryland for her little sister’s christening.
