Jean's Quilt

It's a busy week with John and Dawn and their two boys here getting things done at their new house and shopping for essential pieces of furniture.  Yesterday the first steps were taken to get the Internet up and running and we found the perfect bed for the master bedroom.   Today it's cooktops and bar stools.  

I knew I'd enjoy spending this time with Ben's family but I hadn't expected that Fetcher would make himself right at home on their beds!

This busy week is a good time to fill you in on the quilt I started for my sister, Jean, way back in January.   She loves to travel and for about the past 15 years I've been gathering fabrics with travel themes to use in a quilt just for her.   Now that it's safely in her hands I can show you how it turned out. 

It's a reversible lap size quilt, meant to showcase the various travel related fabrics on both the front and the back.  

One side features international travel.  The body is made up of blocks using the Travelocity gnome. 

Panels showing animals of the world make up the top and bottom borders.

The other side showcases fabrics related to US travel.

The big center block is a map of the United States.

Other big blocks show scenes and images related to various cities and states.

Putting together random pieces like this without a pattern is an absorbing task but when they come together in a pleasing way it's very satisfying.

 

I quilted it on my wonderful Bernina 740, using a wavy gridwork that somewhat recalls the lines on a map.

It was fun to work on this quilt while thinking of my sister and her traveling adventures, many of which included me!