Birthday Quilt for Katelyn

My oldest granddaughter, Katelyn, turned 10 last week. I decided that she has now outgrown the baby quilt that I made for her oh, so many years ago. 

Those 10 years have just flown by-and I'm not quite sure where they went. It feels like just yesterday that I became Grammy. Holding that precious dear life, taking in the sweet scent of her newness, and loving every second I could spend with her. And what a pleasure it has been to watch her grow up.                                                                     

A bubbly, outgoing personality and a smile that lights up the room......

Her curiosity about everything, everywhere has resulted in a steady stream of questions, a huge vocabulary and one smart young lady.

Katelyn's creativity has shown itself in several mediums. She loves to sew, do arts and crafts and can draw beautifully!

A sweet sister, a loving daughter and a precious, endearing granddaughter. Katelyn is so dear! 

I blogged about a quilt I was working on here. It was just quick and easy quarter square triangle blocks made with a layer cake from Moda. Katelyn saw some of the finished blocks up on my design wall and loved it. I decided it was to be for her. 

Once the quilt top was done, I sandwiched it and was ready to quilt. I had done a lot of thinking about how I wanted to quilt this one. Just meandering wasn't going to do, but I did want a simple overall pattern that would stand up to repeated washings. 

I decided that I wanted to quilt loops and flowers...but I needed to work on my flowers before I put thread to fabric. I doodled for a bit and then chose how I wanted the flowers to look-how many petals, size, etc. I drew them over and over again on paper to "train my brain".

Next I tried it out on a "scrap sandwich"-so far, so good! Once I got my tension issues worked out, I was ready to roll.

And then on the quilt itself-the real test of my practice. It was going well! I was pleased. :)

Here is a larger view of the quilt. It definitely has a girly feel. Just what I wanted.

But, the true test of how well the quilt came out was if my sweet Katie liked it too. I was in luck! She's one happy young lady. 

Happy 10th birthday, Katie!