Pajama Party {Quilt}

Love.  Family.   Tradition.  Christmas.   Friendship.

This quilt story  begins with my friend, Cindy.  Actually, it begins with her grandmother.  Picture 1965 (I hope I have the exact year correct).  A mother asks her daughter what in the world she will give her brand new husband for Christmas.  

The first pair of pajamas were born for Cindy's father.

Fast forward to 1988.  Cindy's grandmother had made a pair of pajamas for her father every Christmas up to this point.  She also evolved the tradition to include making pajamas for the other male members also.  Sadly, her grandmother passed.

Her mother, whom is affectionately called Gigi, took up the challenge.  The tradition blossomed.   To honor grandma, everyone received a pair of pajamas.   Each year, the fabric is selected, in secret by Gigi.  Made and delivered on Christmas Eve.  She told me that she buys 50 yards!!!
It is an exciting time every year.  What will the pajamas be? The only hint is that it will be either a boy year, or a girl year. 

 Yes, to answer your question.  The male members of the family do wear Strawberry shortcake!  

They don't fuss. The tradition is that important to the family.

_____________________________

Enter in friendship.  For about nine years now, I have been scrap-booking with her.  Up until recently we had only been "talking" about doing a quilt, but she would always balk.  Someone cut up her cherished pajamas?  No way. Then, last year, she thought she was moving and decided that she really needed to tackle the pajamas.
  Why move two bins full of pajamas when she could just move a single quilt?

 25 years worth.

We agreed to meet so I could take them home.
  I had to slam my trunk before she changed her mind.  I may or may not have calmly removed her fingers off my bumper.  I smiled and zipped away.
Ironically, their lives took a U-turn right back home and she never had to leave. 

But I still had the pajamas!!!!

 We discussed many different layouts, knowing that she wanted each year embroidered.
I embroidered each year in the same corner edge with a subtle thread color.  Enough to see if you were looking for it, but not distracting.

We decided on simple.  On point squares. Large enough for her to really see the motifs of each pajama. Roomy enough for more than one family member to snuggle under.
 (final size 88"x88")

Special pockets with sweet details were appliqued on.

Strips of accent fabrics from pants or sleeves were added like the red above.

The flag patch that was the inspiration for the 2001 pajamas.
In honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11.

I decided on variagated thread to meld the very masculine plaids and the feminine purples and pinks.

It is definitely an old faithful on memory quilts in the past and didn't fail me this time!

I filled in the end half blocks with accent fabrics or more flannel plaids to bring cohesiveness around the edges.  Blue dotted binding said "happy" to me.

Calm and nuetral backing to match her decor and seemed to say "Yes, pajamas. You are the center of attention".

I popped some blue variegated thread on the bottom.  It shifted from light blue to navy.

I have to admit.  This quilt stressed me out before I could cut into it.  I knew how important it was to my dear friend.   I still haven't told her, but I would NOT touch those pajamas until the last minute.  Always fearing she would change her mind!

  How last minute?

If you follow me on Instagram, you could see I started cutting last weekend. I literally cut the pajamas on the 21st of September and with a lot of hours dedicated all hours of the day and night, it was in the final tumble in the dryer on September 28th. 

Just in time for Gigi's visit.

For a pajama party with my friend Cindy.

Love.  Family.  Tradition.  Christmas.   Friendship.

Friday with Finishes

When I say it is Friday and Finishes, I really, really mean it!

Friday

It's a special Friday!!

I am over at Jennifer's at Knotted Thread today!

First, I am flattered that she is having me.  Second, if you have not been over to her blog...get thee there quickly.  I am jealous of a few...okay, many...of her projects.  Third, she is currently living on Maui, Hawaii.  You all know how much I loved it there last summer for our anniversary!

If you are just visiting?  Welcome.  I have some recent projects to share...so you arrived just in time!

Finishes

My Special Delivery Quilts!!!

These quilts were bought last month on a whim from the clearance bin at Joann's.   I needed something FAST.  Story details HERE.  Unfortunately, there were many foibles and sometimes I was completely stuck on where to go next with each quilt.  I will map out my problems throughout the post.

Baby Boy Quilt

 

 A sweet animal panel with flannel borders.

This quilt did not have enough flannel to meet the instructions included. Even AFTER I had found the corrected instructions!!  I was pretty frustrated and just made do with leftover scraps.  You can see them in the bottom two corners. 

Because of this, I ran out of extra flannel from the backing (the squiggly stripe fabric) for the name appliques they said it should have.  I ended up pulling orange (almost a sherbert shade) to match the existing orange flannel fabric. 

 

The quilting for this center panel really had me flustered.  I started with the letters, being really messy.  Have I mentioned how hard it is to be intentionally messy?

For the negative areas, I VERY loosely mimicked what looked to be "echo" quilting in the print.

I used embroidery thread for the orange.  I wanted it to shimmer.  You can't tell in the pictures, but it really made your eye want to go to the orange areas! 

The monkey received some swirls.  I also tried to outline each animal, but not be exactly on the "line" breaking all kindergarten class rules, right?  Are all the teachers out there cringing?

 

I only quilted the mane of the lion, I left the rest of him alone.  I just loosely mimicked the black swirl with the orange embroidery thread.

I was pretty boring on other animals like the zebra...just outlined his stripes.

I really was quite frustrated with the panel as a whole. I didn't want to over quilt it because it WAS a baby quilt, but I also did not want it to be puffy like a comforter.  I hope I found a balance.

I was also extremely annoyed that the small amount flannel for both quilts actually created a major trimming of the panels.  It was sad to see so much cut off.  I lost an entire hill of grass under all the animals. For the girl quilt below, the tree also had grass and a small hill at the bottom, but I didn't want to lose the owl, birds, and banner.

"Little" Big Girl

Maitee's quilt seemed to come together a lot more quickly.  I had cut her blocks and pieced them before I found the corrected instructions.  However, it seemed that the original border cut instructions were much more accommodating.   I am still struggling to figure out why they changed them.

The tree forced me to quilt the negative space with swirls that matched the existing white swirl fabric.

I actually had leftover flannel (the dotted material in the bottom left corner) from the backing, but I wasn't impressed with the flannel on top of the cotton panel, so I pulled a bit of pink sketchy fabric from my stash.  I decided to get a bit messy with the quilting around the letters since the scribbles seemed messy also!

I quilted a repetitive heart over the preexisting heart.

I tried to do add accents to various circles and flowers like the dotted circle below!

Both quilt kits instructed that the quilt was to be sewn together right sides and then turned out.  I was not a fan since I wanted to do the FMQ and didn't think it would work out well.  I chose a simple pink on pink striped fabric from my stash for the binding.

For the boy quilt I used an aqua/teal fabric I had from my stash.  I don't have a photo because I was rushing to wrap them up for their delivery to dad!

I will say it here.  Lessons that I have learned?  I will NEVER impulsively buy a kit from Joann's again. I have had very good luck in the past, but I think these two did me in.  I will just create a simple quilt instead.  I will also probably avoid flannel for a very long time!  I don't mind it as a backing, but am just not a fan of it paired with the cotton for a quilt top.  I am also annoyed that I had to add quite a bit of my own stash to make what was marketed as a quilt into actual quilts and not blankets.

So much for a "quick" quilt project.

All I know is that I can check them off my UFO list!!!

Anyone else have frustrating experiences with what should be the easiest quilts ever?