Children's Quilting

I caught the quilt bug again and I've been working on a lot of things lately. (I'll post pictures when they're quilted & bound.) But my children, particularly my 3 year old daughter, have been interested in fabric lately. A little background first. I started quilting when I was pregnant with my first child. When he was born and I quit working to stay home with him, we just stared at each other. So quilting became more important to me. And even as a 9 month old, he'd sit on my knee while I pushed fabric through my machine.

Now my daughter, she's been a different story all together. She's always seemed jealous of my quilting and the time it takes me, even as an infant. So I've quilted during my off time (whenever that is), or told her the quilt was for her. Now that she's getting older, and wanting to be involved in everything, I've been trying to include her more. She's got a very artistic eye, and when I was working on a Halloween quilt recently, she fished through my garbage for the scraps and told me she wanted to sew her own quilt. I pulled her on my lap, explained about seam allowance and keeping the fabric lined up with the foot, and let her do what she wanted. The result is below. I was machine-appliqueing a moon on mine, so she cut a circle for hers too, which I did sew on for her. Then she wanted muslin to frame it, "like your borders, Mama." I think it's the sweetest thing, and if there's one thing a quilter loves, it's another quilter. Especially a daughter who likes to quilt.

So then Thing 1 decided he'd like to do a quilt too, because anything his sister does . . . you know how it goes. They each chose a color and went through my scrap bins to find strips. These are more structured, Log Cabin style, but they chose what colors went where, and sewed them on themselves. I quilted and bound them, hoping to make something usable. My son thinks his is a green tent for camping (for his Star Wars guys), and my daughter's is a pink doll blanket, of course.

It didn't take very long, and was a fun project for all of us. I may not make homemade playdough, or want to play endless games of hide-and-seek, but this, I can do. It takes all kinds of moms, right?