The va-jay-jay quilt

I wanted to make something fabulous for my co-worker's new baby girl. We have worked together for years, and she has recently gotten into quilting herself. She is a fan of strip quilts and straight line quilting, so I thought I would make something different, outside her comfort zone, with lots of curves. I saw this quilt by Jenny and thought it the perfect pattern!


The nursery was to be done in greys and yellows, so I decided to combine these with some pink for the quilt. I pulled out my Quick Curve Ruler and cut up some of my precious Little Folks voile for the project, paired with Kona charcoal. This was my first time using the ruler and it was a breeze to use. Love it!

I cut and pieced, added a border, and used some Aurafil thread to do some pebble quilting on all the grey bits, new to me, and incidentally, very time and thread consuming! I ran out midway and had to wait 3 weeks for my new spools to arrive. I left the voile pieces unquilted to remain soft and silky to the touch. Then I did a few rows of hand stitching along the borders using Perle cotton thread to finish it off. I had a lovely time finishing the hand quilting and binding while at the lake.


But here's the thing. At some point along the way, I got it in my head that the blocks looked like...well, vaginas. And, being pink, fushia and yellow, they kinda looked like vaginas with various degrees of infection.

That's a hard thing to get out of your mind, once it's there.

So, when it was all said and done, I held it up to my husband skeptically, telling him my views ("yah, you are kinda right!"), and asked if this thing was even giftable. Well, that was when the unexpected happened. Last But Not Least spied the quilt, and declared with all the passion that a 5 year old can muster (which is quite a lot): Mom!! I love it! It is your best quilt ever!!

Huh?

I ignored her, thinking it would pass, but brought her along with me to be my quilt holder for some photographs. Between each and every one, she would give the quilt a mighty embrace:


And she pleaded, please Mom, can we keep it?? Pleeeeeeeeeeze?

In the end, who can resist that face? So, the quilt was granted as hers, and she took it outside to play with her lake friends, spending 3 full hours playing variations of Twister and leap frog with the quilt. No word of a lie! THREE HOURS. Worth its weight in gold. Who'd've thunk it?



And at dinner time that night, as we feasted on a gourmet meal of hot dogs and Kraft mac and cheese, LBNL declared that while dinner was superb, it was the second greatest thing Mama made that day, after the quilt ;)

So, it looks like I will be cursed with looking at that va-jay-jay quilt for years to come! And I have started a new (and anatomy free) replacement quilt for Baby Kiera!

Shared today for some giggles at Quilt Story and at Sew Modern Monday.