It's been SO long since I had a quilt to share with you all. In fact, it might be going on the one year mark here soon. I should check back in my old blogs. Anyways, get excited, because I've got, not just one, but two quilts coming your way here soon. The first is a Christmas present that Erin and I teamed up to make for Ellyn. Sometime near the end of October Erin sent me a text saying "I wish we would have made a quilt for my mom this year..." and I knew we needed to try and make that happen. 2017 was not the easiest year for the McGrath family. I don't like to focus on the negative in this space, so that often means that you don't get the full story on what's going on in our lives. But, 2017 was tough and it was even tougher for Ellyn. Right after her birthday (April) she was diagnosed with advanced stage pancreatic cancer. It took the entire family by surprise and Ellyn as been bravely fighting since that diagnosis.
Erin wanted a quilt for her mom for Christmas, and lord help me if I wasn't going to work my butt off to help make that happen. We picked out a pattern from a book called "Weekend Quilts". Guys, that title is a total joke. When they say "weekend", they mean that you could have the top done in a weekend...and that's if you do nothing else but quilt. After deciding on a pattern we opted to head to the local Joann's to pick out fabric. I almost always buy my fabric online because I like the selection better but we didn't have a ton of time and it was fun to stand in the store together and hand pick our fabric. We chose this "gem tone" color pallet with some yellows thrown in there to brighten it up.
Over the course of about 3 weeks Erin and I managed to pull off an entire quilt top. We worked on some pieces alone at our respective houses and then came together and spent at least 3 full days sewing to get this puppy done in time. Luckily Erin's job is flexible and she was able to spend some week days here sewing while I worked and checked in/helped where I could. I'd pick up in evenings and on weekends and somehow it all came together pretty quickly. This is the first time I've ever worked collaboratively on a quilt and I gotta say, I love it! It's like painting a room with two people. One edges, one rolls. Each is so caught up in their job that when you finally look up, you've got the whole thing done and it went super fast.
We shipped it off to the quilter (a friend of Erin's) Thanksgiving weekend. Since the quilter was a friend, and the cause was worthy, she bumped us to the front of the line and we got the quilted blanket back mid-December. Erin and I put on the finishing touches Christmas Eve night and this was wrapped and under the tree in time for Christmas morning!
I think Ellyn loved this present and I'm hoping that she's getting tons of use out of it. It was made with a lot of love by some pretty special girls...so I hope it brings her happiness when she uses it!
*I didn't think to grab pictures of it before we gifted it so I'll have to get some next time I see Ellyn and update the post for you.
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