My niece's quilt top!

I have a younger sister, too. Did you realize that? Yep…there are 5 of us kids. I have two older brothers, an “older” twin sister, and a younger sister.

My younger sister lives just south of Atlanta and has 3 children. Her husband’s a pastor as well as my twin’s husband is a pastor.

I gave her two sons the quilts I made out of my dad’s shirt’s pockets - their grandfather. I had already made memory quilts for each of us 5 kids so I didn’t know to whom to give them. Since there were two, I decided to just give them to her kids - as they are perfect for guys.

But I didn’t have one for her daughter.

I asked her if she thought my niece would like one - and the answer was a hearty “Yes!”

So, I started thinking about what to do with one for my niece, who is a ‘tween’, I believe, if I remember right. Sometimes I lose track - as I don’t see these kids very often.

Last year when I made the three quilts for our friend who lives in central Asia’s kids, I had my husband ask them to tell me their favorite “thing” and their favorite color and I combined the two and made them quilts. Remember that? I had the turquoise horses, blue big cats and pink pandas. They were quite the challenge! (The patterns for those are all up on the free patterns page.)

Just in case you are reading this blog post and are new to me and what I’ve done - here are the three quilts I made for the daughters of a friend of my husband’s. They are about 7, 9, and 11 now.

It's a Parade

The girl loved big cats and blue.

Central Point

This girl loved turquoise and horses

The Main Thing

This girl loved pink and pandas.

Well, this time, my sis told me her daughter loves cats - and hot pink and lime. Yep. Sounds about right for a tween, correct? She also suggested a lap quilt size, thinking that she would use it longer than a bed quilt.

Cats and hot pink? Hmm. And lime?

Well, I was in FL at the time and managed to find a perfect fit for the cat fabric - the only one my sis had with a cat motif that I liked in those colors! Most fabulous cat fabrics aren’t pink and lime green!

But wait. My sis also told me that I should add “music” to that as well - as my little girl niece who is about 12 is becoming a “cracker jack” violinist - playing first chair in her orchestra. Who knew? (I didn’t even know she was taking violin!)

I’m not surprised though, as her mom (my sis) and her dad (my brother in law) are both terrific musicians. All that musical talent and art flows through my mom’s side of the family - she was a singer/pianist/organist -studied at a music conservatory.

That added a bit more complexity to my quilt fabric quest. Especially since I was here already when I heard about it and couldn’t raid my sis’s “stash” (LOL!).

I also knew that, like the other quilts I made with this idea, I needed to leave the pieces big enough to see the cats!

This is what I came up with!

It’s about 60”x70”.

Here’s a close up of the block. I thought making that churn dash block would add a tiny bit of complexity for a girl who is becoming a woman - more than a simple block. My biggest worry was whether I had brought enough of the main fabric or not. (I did not - I sure was wishing for another yard! I had brought 2 yards - I should have brought 3.)

Because these fabrics are all directional - the prints, that is, I did have to be on my toes while making this - especially the half square triangles. I didn’t dare make any mistakes as I needed every inch of fabric I had.

The cat background fabric I kind of just let jump into my suitcase from my sis’s “Chop Shop”. It was a flat fold by Classic Cottons - should any of you wonder - and no, she doesn’t have any more.

I guess you could say that I’ve done the best I could with what I had - trying to keep the age of the child in mind as I worked.

I did bring over the hot pink and lime and the feature fabric. The music fabric I had here already. I would have loved some “tossed notes on white” - but didn’t have any. But that’s okay. That’s life.

You use what you have!

If you have any ideas for name for the pattern, I’d love to hear it. I was thinking something about the churn dash block or monkey wrench block.

I’m trying to finish this one up soon - as it is one of the ones I’ve had on my mind. I’ll have the pattern ready (with a name) by the time I show the finished quilt.

And that’s it for today!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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