Last year the lovely @SheepBlue sent my daughter a book called The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt. All the Little Ghost’s family members are sheets, but he’s a quilt. Since he’s heavier, he can’t float as fast, and he isn’t as agile as his friends. He gets teased; the other Ghosts call him “Scrappy”, and it makes him sad. Of course, in the end he has an adventure and it turns out to be a good that he’s different. Ada instantly loved the book, and immediately started wearing quilts over her head, walking around going “Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh”.
Jim looked up the author (who is a quilter too!) and saw that a bunch of people have made quilts that look like the Ghost. Clearly I had to make Ada her own Little Ghost Quilt too! I pulled out all the blue, white and grey prints in my stash, then I posted in Use It Or Lose It thread, asking if anyone had matching fabrics they were looking to pass on. And they did! Lettuce Crafters sent me so many lovely fabrics, that I soon had a bunch of fun stuff to use to help make the quilt truly scrappy.
Some folks sent squares, others sent FQ’s or yardage. I’m not sure how much yardage I actually sliced and diced. But by the time I was done cutting, I had approximately 603 5” squares. Enough to make numerous baby quilts… Meanwhile, I had two girlfriends who each had given birth to a little boy. Since I had so many squares cut, I decided to make 2 extra quilts, and pick up two more copies of the book to share with them.
After I finished cutting, I came to the realization that while the book had a random scrappy look to it, to actually create that feel, I’d have to do a bit more planning than just pulling a next square out of a basket. “Randomizing” these fabrics was way harder than anticipated. I ended up grouping the fabrics by color and value, then giving them each a number. My husband helped me with a computer program he wrote. It took 3 different models, by two people, over 2 days, along with some manual tweaking, since the computer really wanted to put numbers like 2 and 3, or 6 and 7 next to each other, meaning the colors and values of those fabrics were nearly identical creating a “blob” of color, rather than a scrappy patchwork.
Once everything was randomized, the quilt tops went together quickly. For the baby quilts I did a simple 10x10 layout. As Ada is 3 now, she’s bigger, so I made hers 13x13 squares. That way when she wore it over her head, it would come close to her feet, and she could play “dress up” as the Ghost.
The baby quilts were quilted in the ditch, and Ada’s was done with a meandering free-motion. After getting side tracked on a few other time sensitive projects, they were bound, and just awaiting the faces. Now that I’m out of my brace, and my wrist is nearly back to normal, I was able to work on them again last week. I added the faces in black, with wonder under, and some satin stitching around the edges. It wasn’t difficult, but gripping the quilts and making such tight turns did bother my wrist, so I just did one a day till they were done.
While they are simple 5" squares, I’m really pleased with how they came out. I love the cheerful color palette, and the sweet little face of the Ghost. This is Ada’s larger quilt.
And here’s the Little Ghost Himself! Or Herself as the case may be.
And a heartfelt Thank You to everyone on LC who helped contribute to thisi project! I love you guys!
Such fun!!