My wedgewood quilt.

I have had to keep this quilt under wraps for a while now... let me start from the beginning.

My dear sister-in-law Ally recently moved to Germany with her husband and 1 year old daughter. They will be there for a few years, and are having lots of fun discovering what life is like living as ex-pat's in a European country. My MIL and FIL have gone on a trip to visit her, and as a gift my MIL made Ally a quilt from the shirts of her late Grandpa, my MIL's Dad. This was not only a very touching project that my MIL undertook, but also an inspiring one.

As we know, fabrics can be reused to make quilts. Woman have been cutting up colourful fabric scraps to make quilts for their home and family for centuries. Feedsacks were very popular during the depression as a source of bright and somewhat easily obtainable cotton fabric. All those 1930's quilts you see with distinct colourful patterns against a multitude of cream muslin reflect those times.

More recently, many of you who follow Nancy's blog will remember her amazing 7-shirt quilt she designed and made.

So my MIL has inspired this quilt I will show you. I forgot to take a photograph of the one she made before she left for her trip, but I am sure if I ask Ally really nicely she would be only too happy to send me a photo of it in its new home! You will all love it.

So here is the big reveal!

I call it my Wedgewood Quilt as it reminds me of English Wedgewood China.

Made from only 6 mens shirts (large & extra large sizes) I managed to make an entire quilt top. The quilt top itself only cost $30 total to make! The central panel is made from 6 inch squares and the boarder is 5 inches. The quilt itself actually turned out a lot larger than I had intended it to be, but you know what its like when you are in the moment, you just keep on sewing. Plus I felt bad having left over fabric.

I added the boarder to use up all the little bits left over, and included that tiny narrow solid blue first boarder to set the centre panel off from the boarder. I am doing very simple hand quilting on it, which is a nice change from my Vintage Quilt, which just seems to be taking forever to finish because of all the little fiddly hand quilting bits. After a while, the quilting on that quilt does not become fun. I backed the Wedgewood Quilt with blue and white striped shirting fabric from a local fabric store.

My MIL enjoyed making Ally's quilt so much, that I think she will make one for herself when she gets back to Australia!

So a very big thanks Merren for inspiring this quilt and letting me copy your design! You always have such neat ideas!

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On another note. Thank you all for your suggestions for the 4th of July party! I have told them to Mill and she loves them. Buying and using fireworks is actually illegal in Australia, so we have decided to take Elizabeth's suggestion and light sparklers instead.

Food decided on so far:

Mini hot dogs

Macaroni cheese

Homemade potato salad

Mini apple pies

Red velvet cupcakes

Can anyone tell me what root beer is?

Sam xox