Blogger's Quilt Festival: Friendship Quilts

Welcome, Blogger's Quilt Festival visitors! Have fun perusing all the amazing quilts out there. Today I am going to share a new finish with you that is dear to my heart. If you would like to see more of my past quilts, you can find my 2011 quilts here and my 2010 quilts here. Thanks for popping by!

When you were a kid, did you ever exchange jelly bracelets with your best girlfriends? Or make up matching embroidery thread ones? It was also a fad when I was young to decorate your shoelaces with friendship pins adorned with beads, made by your buddies. How about one of those heart necklaces that broke into two pieces, reading "best friends?"

It was along this line of thought that I decided to make matching "friendship quilts" for my best friend and me. We became BFFs (long before there was ever an abbreviation "BFF") back in elementary school in the early 1980s. We both had a knack for skipping double dutch and played a mean game of hopscotch. Over the years, our friendship has grown and encompassed all the things that make up a life- graduations, boyfriends, breakups, marriages, deaths and births. And all the little things, too- shared recipes and bottles of wine, movie nights, girl gossip.

I had bought this fabric awhile back with the intention of making these quilts to celebrate our 30 year "anniversary" of friendship, which will be in 2012. But last month my best friend had a heart attack, a freaky one-in-a-million crappy lottery she won, though she never bought a ticket for this- it was 100% unrelated to genetics or health or lifestyle. So, I thought if there was ever a time when someone needed a little love and comfort, it was now. And so I got to slicing and dicing, and here is what we have:



One for her, one for me. I used Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush line because I loved the vibrant colors and hints of purple, my friend's favorite color. I cut it into charm squares, as she has often commented that this is her favorite kind of quilt: simple patchwork.



I had intended to do some fancy straight line quilting, but wasn't feeling it when I sat down at my machine- it seems that life's paths are anything but straight at the moment, so a meandering pattern it became. I love the way it shows itself on the plush minky backing.



I made a couple hand embroidered labels for the quilts which I hand stitched onto the front.

(my dog always finds the softest places to nap!)

I hope that, while she is recovering from this ordeal, she can feel a hug from me each time that she wraps herself in this quilt....and I will feel the same when I am cuddled up with mine.