hedgehogs and ladybugs and clovers, oh my...

My friend Maribeth is the one that taught me how to sew and quilt. She has always been my biggest cheerleader, always full of encouraging advice and always very complimentary of anything I do. Maribeth teaches sewing classes at a local shop and if I happen to drop in during one of her classes, she will always sing praises about me to her students. This woman just knows how to make me feel like a rock star!

She has a birthday at the end of the month and I had intended to make her a coin quilt with different shades of blue fabric since blue is her favorite color. I was browsing around Etsy one day and found THIS Japanese fabric. Maribeth LOVES hedgehogs! She also loves ladybugs and 4 leaf clovers and HELLO, this was all set on BLUE, her favorite color! I had to buy it. It was kismet!

The seller only had half a yard and the material was 100% cotton canvas so it wasn't very soft. I wanted the focus to be on the hedgehog fabric so I framed each 5" square with 1.5 " of white and then 3.5" of a colorful print. I really like the end result!

Here's a close-up of a block.

For the back, I thought I'd make the coin quilt that I'd originally planned on making. A lot of my sewing happens late night when I can't sleep and let's just say my math skills aren't that sharp at night so I made the back too small. Besides, it was too pretty to be a back so I'm going to save it for another occasion. I decided to make 3 more blocks from the scraps of the hedgehog fabric and this is the result. In hindsight, I wish I had made some of these blocks for the front to give it more of a variety but oh, well. I really, really love this backing! The finished quilt measures 50"x64". I just need to make the quilt label and then it'll be on it's way to Maribeth.

I'm going to give her the quilt early as she recently had surgery on her knee and has been feeling a little blue. I'm hoping this will cheer her up!