DrEAMi baby quilts

DrEAMi baby quilts…

So, I have a young colleague who, after many years, finally finished her post postgrad education and got pregnant. With twins. Life as a surgeon is not easy, and when I last worked with her in early December, her arms were getting too short. Well, not really, but it’s hard to reach far into bellies when your own is full of babies. At least, that’s what I thought as I sat in my comfortable anesthesiologist’s chair, remembering the challenges of being pregnant many moons ago.

I was off work for three weeks around Christmas and came back to find the babies had been born. That was not really good news. They weren’t due until April. I thought I’d make her tiny quilts.  I consulted one of our nurses who’d spent years in the neonatal nursery, and she recommended  at least 36″ so they could be used to keep light out of incubators. So much for tiny quilts. She also recommended tiny dolls that the mother could put in her shirt and that could then be put in the incubators, bringing the babies the mother’s scent. I dusted off my knitting needles, and this is the result.

The quilt idea wouldn’t go away. Talk about a persistent squirrel! Then, last weekend, I was rummaging and found a box of a half dozen blocks and multiple unused strips from a quilt top I made last year. You’ll hear about that one soon; it’s in the quilting line up. I realized I could have two baby quilts done in no time, and use up some orphan blocks and scraps. I set to work. The tops were done in a couple days. The yellow, white, and grey colour scheme was even gender neutral, although I’m enough of a traditionalist that I made a pink block for one quilt, and a blue one for the other. And later snuck in a little of the pink and blue into a corner of each binding. After all, you need to be able to tell them apart. The quilts, I mean.

Since my longarm wasn’t functional, I spray basted sandwiches in preparation for quilting them on my DSM. And then got up the nerve to replace the tension assembly in Tin Lizzie. I’d had the part for months, but my first attempt at installing it didn’t work. I tried again. Got my friend Roxanne over. We both tried. She went home and got on facebook and stayed awake trying to figure it out. Next morning, she sent me a text and link about how to tighten the screw in the middle of the assembly. I did. And now I have two finished baby quilts and a working longarm.

You know those wonderful clothesline pictures? Here’s my attempt.

Not so good. So I took them down to the pond (which would be a lake to most of you) and tried for an artsy shot on the rocks.

A photographer I’m not. Maybe the upcoming workshop on quilt picture taking at Quiltcon will help. In the meantime, this is my life and these are the quilts.

And now they are going in the wash to become all clean and crinkly before they are gifted.

Thanks to Sandra of mmmquilts for her recognition that there are projects that make you drop Everything And Make them. I’m linking up with her.

Oops! I should have told you that the pattern for the block is from Film in the Fridge