This is the quilt I’ve been working on for the last several months, ever since I got George in March. I finished it last week, and it was presented to Sarah by her husband Erik for her birthday. She knew there was a quilt coming her way, she knew I was making it, but the theme was a total surprise. To be honest, the quilt took so many twists and turns, it was a bit of a surprise to me as well!

I found this adorable Peanuts fabric last year and immediately thought of Sarah, because she’s a big Peanuts fan. I was telling my husband about it and I said I’d like to make a quilt using the fabric but I was short on funds. Erik is his best friend, so Chris called him and told him about the fabric. Erik thought it would make a great birthday gift for Sarah, so he funded the quilt. And I was off … Originally, I was going to make all the pieced blocks pinwheels but I quickly found out that I’m not a big fan of pinwheel construction, so I changed it to making half of them pinwheels and half nine patch. Then I had to get an embroidery machine to do the characters (OK, I had planned to buy the embroidery machine anyway, but doesn’t it sound cool to say that you bought a machine for a particular project? 😀 ).

As I neared completion of the top, Erik requested that I incorporate camouflage fabric into the quilt. I wondered how the heck I was going to do that, then decided to use it as the backing. But when the “camo quilt fabric” showed up at my door, it was anything but quilt fabric. I knew as soon as I touched it that it would never work. So Chris called Erik and explained the problem. I told them, “Leave this to me; I will take care of it. Trust me to get this right.”

Around that time, I had found some Marilyn Monroe fabric and thought it was really pretty, but I had no idea what to do with it. I mentioned it to Chris and he said, “Sarah is a HUGE Marilyn fan, you know.” Well, no, I didn’t know that but the idea was born …

I added some stars for quilting, and bound the whole thing by machine.

In the end, I think it turned out pretty well, and I think Sarah likes it, too. And that’s one more for the history books, folks. 😀

My next project is a quilt for my daughter and son in law for Christmas (they already know about it, so I’m not giving anything away here) and a throw quilt for … I don’t know who it will go to, but I’m sure it will make a great gift for someone!