When you get the opportunity to make a baby quilt for a long-time friend’s soon-to-be grandson, the pleasure begins with choosing the design. But it doesn’t end with delivering the quilt. No, it doesn’t end for a very long time – more like when that soon-to-be baby has a child of their own and you ask them if they still have the baby quilt you made for them when THEY were a baby! I’ve had the pleasure of finding that out within the last year and the thrill of knowing someone has saved their baby quilt (or their parents did) that you made them 18 or more years ago is over-the-top quilted love!

Braxton needed a baby quilt. The fabric color choices were not something I would choose as there were light’s and dark’s but no medium shades of fabrics. But the quilt grew on me as I sewed it together. And when I added the machine embroidery, that helped, too. The final thing that clinched my love for this quilt was when my dear friend Meloney quilted it (and added the binding!) for his quilt.

I rarely ask Meloney to quilt a quilt with any specific pattern. In fact, I can only think of two instances, in the 10+ years I’ve known her, where I’ve done so. She prefers to let the quilt talk to her and tell her what pattern to quilt it in. For Braxton’s quilt, once she saw the deer stag head shot, she felt quilting it with leaves was appropriate as it would signify a deer walking through a forest. And she was absolutely right!