Lily or Lilly? A Quilt for a Lily...

Several weeks ago one of my coworkers called to say he's a grandfather.  He was pretty excited!  I know the feeling... my mom used to say if she knew how much fun grandchildren were she'd have had them first!  Although I'm not sure how she would have arranged that... The baby's name is Lily.  Or maybe Lilly, like Lillian?  I'm not sure.  I determined to make a quilt appropriate for her name and send it up to Gramps in Stevens Point. So I searched for a pattern or fabric with lily either in the title or in the shape.    I'm not much for applique so that was out.  It wouldn't necessarily have been if I'd had more time, but I wanted to get it done fast. I considered Carolina Lily.  Not crazy about those diamonds. Gorgeous but so not me!! This is what about.com says about the floral version of lily.  My favorite kind of lily, and the flower of my birth month is: Lily of the Valley Flowers

Common names: Lily of the Valley, May Lily, Convallaria, Our Lady's Tears, Convall-lily, Lily Constancy, Ladder-to-Heaven, Jacob's Ladder, Male Lily Description: The Lily of the Valley has broad, spear-like foliage and fragrant little white bell-shaped flowers. While it’s a popular garden perennial, the Lily of the Valley has seen increasing popularity as a cut flower, especially in wedding bouquets. Then there's Easter Lily... I always ask my kids NOT to buy me these at Easter because the scent reminds me of funerals.  But they're pretty... Common names: lily, Easter lily Description: Long, narrow leaves cover a single stem. At the top, they divide into three to seven stems, each with a single bud. Open flowers are six-pointed, white and trumpet-shaped. The fragrant blooms can last seven days to three weeks. There are no current fabric lines with lilies in them that I liked.  I found some tiger lilies and some other colored versions, but nothing thrilled or inspired. On to Etsy!  I found two lily fabrics.  One was pink and had kind of red-orange flowers.   I bought it just in case it was the only one I ever found.  The second was green with pots of lily of the valley in white.  The pots were pink, blue and yellow.  It was OK but again, not great.  I actually came up with a color scheme that I thought would work.  The third find was gorgeous, but when it came it felt a little heavy, like maybe it's home dec fabric.  It went on the 'pile' for future projects.     Not ready to give up, I tried eBay.  I have shopped eBay in the past and had great success with my favorite or maybe second favorite collection, Depression Glass.  I found a winner, but the seller was in Indonesia!  I had first screened for US sellers only but what came up was what I had already seen.  I didn't see a freight quote, but since the fabric was like twelve dollars, I said DO NOT SHIP if freight is more than $10.  I got a very nice email saying it was much less.  Sold! My international package arrived on Saturday.  The pattern I used is Five Easy Pieces from Quilty magazine.   The magazine's out of print but you can still buy the patterns and back issues on line.  It was a cool magazine, but that's a whole 'nother post... It makes a very small baby quilt - 33x42 -- and I wanted something a bit larger.  You start with a center square of 6.5 inches, so I just upsized to 8.5 inches, and made all the other pieces the same width as the pattern (but obviously longer).  My finished quilt is 39x50.  Granted, the picture does not look very 'baby-ish'  But the green is kind of soft, a Quilter's Candy color from that catalog, is it Connecting Threads?  anyway, with the addition of a pink Bella Solid and a white dot, and since the background is black a B&W ticking stripe, I think it's quite feminine.

 

 

 

All that is required now is quilting and binding.  And shipping off to Lily.

 

Sew on...