Go U, NU

The other sewing project I had planned for the end of August that turned into an epic mad dash was a pair of baby quilts for a college friend of the Hubster’s. M is expecting twins, and another member of their little group decided that it would be fun to throw her a themed baby shower when much of the group came together in Syracuse for Northwestern’s football opener.

 Gifts were to be either Purple or “ridiculous.”

 I chose purple.


When I offered to make these quilts (in late July), I took a look at my fabric stash and realized it was pretty light in the purple department. Two days before she died, my mom was going up to our favorite Pittsburgh quilt store (The Quilt Company) in order to buy a sewing cabinet. I tagged along both for company and to look for purple fabrics.


Mom called me from a shop in Peters Township while I was at the gym that Friday telling me that Sew Much Fun might have some candidates as well. I stopped and got a few more options on Saturday morning before my shift at Bloomin.


As I’ve blogged previously, everything scheduled for August came to a complete halt the following day. Once I finished the SpaceCadet project, I had four days to do this pair of quilts, start to finish. Game on. I started piecing the tops on Sunday night, sandwiched them on Monday and Tuesday, quilted Tuesday and Wednesday, and had the bindings sewn down Thursday and washed them Thursday night. I win.

Because I had no real plan for precisely which colors I’d use in each quilt, I decided from the beginning that I’d do a scrappy binding.


I also used my favorite technique to start/finish binding, and it worked out perfectly, as you can see above.


There’s one “Northwestern” touch that I put on both quilts. My original plan had been to quilt a “sculpted N” into a block of the quilt, but there was no time. So I added “Go U, NU” to both quilts. Since clearly, these kids will be Wildcats, just like their mom.


I had flannel in the stash, and these quilts were ditch quilted, then stippled. Quick and dirty. It’s one of the reason I love quilting. There is no way in hell I could do ANY knitted gift for twins, start to finish, between Sunday afternoon and Thursday afternoon. But with quilting, all is possible.

Parents-to-be have been instructed that these quilts are machine-wash, and should be dragged through the mud and puked on. It's one of the things I love about baby quilts. They're damn durable. Win.