East West Home Is Best Quilt for Alexa

My niece, Alexa, left home this fall to attend the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts in Toronto. I made this quilt for her so she could wrap herself in a bit of home.

The quilt is called "East - West - Home Is Best". I hadn't planned on starting her quilt yet (I had some other commitments on the go) but sometimes quilting just happens, usually resulting in your favourite quilts. I must say, I like this one very much. This started with some leftover half rectangles that made me think of Alexa.

Alexa is a performer. In her last year of high school she was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. And last year she was in Peter Pan. These thoughts combined with her colourful and bright personality went into this quilt.

I had a few technical difficulties with this quilt and while it might not be my best work, it somehow came together and I'm really happy with the look of it. 

Lisa very kindly quilted this for me at the last minute so I could give this to Alexa for Christmas. I gave it to her unbound, mind you, but I was able to finish it in time for her to take it with her to Toronto. I had a couple of late nights!

I'm so happy with Lisa's quilting! She very kindly included some phrases that are stitched into the quilt. It's very subtle with the white thread on white background, but if you look really hard you can read the text and just knowing it's there is the main thing.  The words include a verse from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" 

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue 

And the dreams that you dare to dream, 

Really do come true.

... and, from Peter Pan, "You can fly ... you can fly ... you can fly ... you can fly ... you can fly ... you can fly ... you can flyyyyy".

Appropriately, there are bluebirds on the back in the Tula Pink Free-Falling fabric. It's so silky! I mean, REALLY silky!

The label is a made from a corner of a vintage handkerchief, homage to Alexa's parents' wedding quilt that was made using vintage handkerchiefs. I chose this handkerchief because there's a girl on it who looks like a dancing gypsy ... very much like our own Alexa! And then, again in homage to Alexa's Mom, I cut the handkerchief into the shape of some pretty panties! This story makes me laugh and hopefully it will make Alexa laugh, too. When I first met the woman who would become my sister-in-law, she was a teenager and almost every time I saw her, she should show me her panties! Her panties were really pretty and such a shame that nobody could see them, of course, so she would always show them to me! LOL. When I reminded her of that today when I dropped off the quilt, she couldn't remember ever doing that! How could she forget??!! Funny!

Quilt Details

Name: East - West - Home Is Best

Pattern: Original Design

Size: 60" x 80"

Fabrics: A mix of stash fabrics and scraps for the geese. The background fabric and binding are large Pearl Bracelet in Bright Star by Lizzy House. The backing fabric is Tula Pink's FreeFall in Orchid.

Quilting: By Lisa Hancheroff - includes lyrics to songs and a pretty loopy design.

Label: Made from a vintage handkerchief