Passing on the Patchwork

When I was eight and sick in bed with the chickenpox for a week, a friend of the family sent me this quilt: (after reading this post my mom informs me I received this for a baby present - so I guess I just first APPRECIATED it during that chicken pox week!)

I loooooved it, but more than the top I loved the back that (back in the day) was jet black with tiny flowers.  When I pulled the covers over my head the light would shine through and the flowers were like stars in the sky.

Cotton sure does fade over the years, but not that red acrylic yarn used to tie it!  As I've gotten into quilting this year I wanted to make similar quilts for my nieces, and I wanted to start with the back fabric since that was the part I loved best in my quilt.  I finally decided on this:

It's Kaffe Fassett's Fan Flower.  I'm not usually one to pay attention to fabric names/designers, but when I ran out fabric for the back of these quilts I spent a frenzied hour on the internet discovering they don't make it anymore!  These sisters like matching everything - if you vary too much one sister always suspects the other got the better deal, so I knew the backs needed to match.  This is what I ended up with:

And for the front, which I have a feeling will end up being the back, considering how much little girls love their names, I did this with shott cottons, which I'd never heard of before I fell in love with this post. 

Ha, and all together now...

I'm excited to lint roll the cat hair off these puppies and get them in the mail!

Christmas Presents for the Garbage Obsessed

My nephew has been obsessed with all-that-is-garbage since he could talk - or at least that's how long we've been aware of the obsession.  In the early days this meant circling the neighborhood to find garbage trucks to follow.  As he learned to walk it meant patrolling the neighborhood on trash day to close all the cans.  Now it means his garbage-themed birthday party involves games where the challenge is sorting recycling into the correct bin, and the family hits all the sanitation department open houses for the surrounding towns every summer.  Even though he lives across the country, he is who I call when I need to know the last day I can leave out yard waste or whether pizza boxes are ok to throw in the "toter" (yes, that's what they're called in this part of the country and only my nephew and I know that).   A couple years ago I collected close to 30 gum containers that looked like recycling bins, tore off the labels and gave them to him for Christmas.

Last year I came up with this t-shirt:

The lid flaps up so you can put stuff inside.  So what's it going to be this year?  Looking for suggestions!