Heart Quilt Happiness

Some of you may recall me previously mentioning the Night of Hope, a gala evening held to raise money for Breast Cancer research. This event is held locally in the lower mainland of British Columbia and my mom volunteers her time throughout the year to organize the silent auction portion of the event. We both volunteer on the evening of and help with the running of the silent auction. This year I decided to also donate a quilt for auction. I have been working on this quilt for awhile now and finally finished her (180 HST's later) just in time for the auction last night.

48 x 60 lap quilt

I am pleased to tell you that she was purchased and went home to live with a new family. I am thrilled that the lady who purchased her was thrilled! It felt good to see it go walking off in the arms of someone who was smiling with the delight of their new (I want to say family member here...) quilt.

Please tell me I am not the only one who does this - becomes so familiar with their quilt (after all the cutting, sewing, ironing, stacking, smelling, patting, wrangling, gazing, squishing etc etc) that you feel it is sincerely a part of you, or at least a part of your family. I often find it hard to part with my quilts, even though I made them for the particular person (or in this case reason) they are going to and not because I actually want to keep them, but just because they are SUCH a part of me and I will miss them. Ok, sounds crazy - but is true.

I quilted this one with a design I had originally drafted when I was working on this quilt. I divided it visually into four sections and quilted it as you see in the picture below (this pic depicts only 2 sections/or the top half of the quilt) - only with many, many more lines of quilting, about an inch or so apart. I do so like the look of a densely quilted quilt - so very textured. Let me tell you though - this was some serious quilt wrangling with the all the turns - each quadrant took me 2.5 hours to quilt. Phew!!! But I absolutely love the outcome, so worth it every time.

And of course, added a label. I love these labels - it feels much better to send my quilts out into the world with my name on them. It felt wrong to me, when I sent them out without my name, like someone/somewhere might want to know one day where this came from.

Polka dots for the backing just fit naturally with this quilt. Who doesn't love a good polka dot??!!!

And lastly, my fave heart. Interesting that in this quilt my favourite block is the colour of Breast Cancer awareness - very fitting I think.

I hope you each have a happy weekend. On to another project for me,  I love the moment of finish up one and start up/planning something new. Somehow so satisfying and exciting all rolled up in one. Linking up with 'Finish it up Friday' over at Crazy Mom Quilts and 'Let's get Acquainted' linky party hosted by Nat at Made in Home -  going to go check out what everyone else has been up to!

~Lisa