Gorgeous Yellow and Gray Quilt from Molly Flanders

I am quickly becoming a huge fan of Molly Flanders!  Oh my goodness is she talented!  It's the same way I feel about Jennifer Aniston, if we were to meet in real life I'm confident we'd be best friends :)  Check out her Lark Quilt that she's currently hand quilting.  Close your mouth.  And her Stashbuster Quilt?  Do you see those tiny yo-yo's?  Okay so before you spend forever on her blog admiring all the goodness, check out this amazing quilt she made for a friends new baby.

If you recall, over the past couple of months I have had several super secret projects I have been working on.  One of which, is completed and received {just in time} for someone very special.

This project was inspired by a mini-quilt from Purlbee.

  

purlbee

The design is courthouse steps....a log cabin variation.  I was already familiar with this arrangement.....this one I made several years ago and is in my family room....

    But the new quilt was destined for Lora and her new baby.  Lora was one of my very first students at Sew To Speak....

We love Lora...seriously....everyone at the shoppe LOVES Lora!!!  So Lora expecting her first baby was definitely something to celebrate :)

Because they were keeping the gender a mystery until the big day...I knew I had to do something gender neutral.  But we all spied on Lora as she selected fabric for her nursery so we knew her colors and even the fabric she was choosing....aren't we sneaky???

  

I knew yellow had to be a central color and then I simply added several off white fabrics....mainly because I wanted to incorporate this lovely Nani Iro {Colorful Pocho} print.

My center rectangle is 1 1/2" X 2 1/2" and the logs {or steps}  are 1 1/2 inches wide....

In the Purl mini-quilt, I really loved the very thin strip of dark.  I placed these strips randomly in each of my courthouse blocks....

  

I had to hand quilt this one....Lora knows how much I love hand quilting with perle cotton.  And as cheesy as it sounds, when I hand quilt it gives me time to ponder the quilt and the special person that will be receiving this quilt.  Almost as if every stitch is laid with love and blessings for the recipient.

  

  

I used dark grey perle cotton....stitching randomly around the steps on each block....

  

The quilt was bound with the same sweet red gingham as the center.....

And then an embroidered label for the new baby....

    

End of story??? No!  I am pleased to announce that Lora had a beautiful baby boy about one week ago!  Congratulations Lora and tons of love to baby Harrison :)