The Quilt That Almost Wasn’t

I have some dear friends who moved to the United States several years ago, so we don’t get to see each other very often. Thankfully, all these newfangled gadgets (like smartphones) help us to stay in touch. It can be so hard being apart from the people we care about, but it’s become so much easier to include them in our lives, and for that I am truly thankful.
I was very touched when I received an email from Stephen, asking if I would be interested in making a baby quilt for his lovely bride Claire’s new grandson. Of course I jumped all over it. The only thing they asked was that it was 48″ x 48″ and had his name ‘Keegan’ on it. I started plotting some ideas right away.
I wanted something simple, so my first layout was just simple squares with an area that I could appliqué the name to.

Then I got fancy. Real fancy. That’s right, I pulled out the hourglass block.

I was thinking I’d put his name in huge letters up the left side, or maybe in smaller sized letters on the bottom right. I decided to do up one more layout, and have Stephen and Claire choose which they liked best.

I just combined the first two layouts and came up with the winning design. Claire indicated that she wanted it very simple, just two fabrics, light blue and dark blue. I headed down to my stash to see what I could find.
I quickly came upon several options, and once again, I had Stephen and Claire choose their favourite. They went with a dark blue Mirage print from the Connecting Threads Basics line, and a light blue dot from the Morning Glory Farm line. I got to work right away, only to discover that I wouldn’t have enough of the light blue fabric. Poor, poor me. It looked like I’d have to order more. I went online to Connecting Threads to place an order, only to find that the fabric I needed was sold out! I was panicked, but thought I’d ask the Quilt With Us forum members if anyone had some they’d be willing to part with. No luck. I was thinking I’d have to start over with different fabric. Then I got a message from a friend who is ‘The Queen of the Internet’. No lie. She can find anything. She had contacted the lady who designed it and found some yardage. I was tickled! It was going to cost about $25 for the yard, but at that point I didn’t care. I sent off an email and waited for a reply.
Imagine my surprise when I came home the next day and there was a message on my answering machine from Kara at Connecting Threads. Someone in the warehouse had seen my plea on Quilt With Us and just so happened to come across a yard of the fabric I so desperately needed! They would sell it to me for the regular price and even give me FREE SHIPPING!!! I just about fell over! Talk about amazing customer service!!!
I only had to wait about a week for the fabric to arrive, and once it did I went right to work. It didn’t take long to get the quilt put together, and I was able to get it quilted and bound by Tuesday of this week. I had to work that afternoon, so I figured I’d get it washed up, take a few pictures, and pop it in the mail before the 3 pm mail pickup. HA! That didn’t happen! My washer has been giving me grief and keep stalling with 12 minutes left in the cycle. The only thing I can do is power it off and start again. I had to do that 3 times before it finally ran the whole cycle. By then I didn’t have enough time to dry it completely, but since it was a sunny and breezy day, I figured I’d just hang it outside the library and let it dry there. HA! I went out to take pictures and dropped it in the dirt, which turned to mud because it was still wet. *sigh* Back into the wash it went, and off to work I went.
The next morning, I took it down to the pasture to get some photos with the horses. I got a couple of good ones and headed back up to the house. That’s when I noticed that one of the little buggers had slobbered all over it with his grassy, dirty lips. Back into the wash it went. Then the machine had to stall twice. It was still quite wet when I had to leave for town. I knew it would never dry in time to make the mail. I texted a couple friends to see who was around, and Josephine came to the rescue!!!! She took it home, threw it in her dryer, and had it back in plenty of time to get it mailed. She even brought me packing tape for the box!

The picture turned out so nicely I can almost forgive Nichief for goobering up the quilt. I hope that wee Keegan arrives safely in this world and that ‘the quilt that almost wasn’t’ keeps him warm and snug.

I’m linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday and with Quilt Matters for TGIFF