Belle and Snoopy - preserving memories

Many, many years ago, while I was pregnant with DD#2 I found a cheerful blanket pattern to crochet. When I finished up the blanket I noticed that the pattern was entitled "Cara's Blanket"; this was quite serendipitous because coincidentally that sweet baby was named Cara anyway; it was meant for her.

This cute little Cara however was allergic to acrylic and so I had to make her a cotton quilt. The sweetest fabric I could find at the time was a Snoopy and Belle (copyright Charles Schulz) print on a pink background. This, along with some great "Thermalon" batting and a wide satin blanket binding became her special blanket.
(Just look at these super sweet sisters; March 1983.)
Cara traveled with this quilt everywhere, and even as she grew up her magic blanket "Snoopy" was with her. I always teased that I would have to sew it into her wedding dress when she married as they were almost never seen apart. Now however this sweet little Cara is an adult, married woman. Yes, there was a piece of the quilt sewn into the lining of her wedding dress.

So, the tired and much love worn, twice re-bound and re-covered "Snoopy" now hidden under a lady bug print was becoming pretty lonely. After 24 years and a thousand washings, the fabric was worn bare but that Thermalon batting was still in great shape.
Cara really liked the Amy Butler kit that I purchased for myself for fun in December 2006.
Eventually I decided I would make it and then give it to her. Somehow I thought it would be a great idea then to use the love-worn Snoopy as the batting. I needed to add some extra all around as it was a bit smaller than the pattern I was making.


I save all my project scraps (batting included) and easily found some cotton batting of matching weight. The fabric on the "Snoopy" was all tattered and frayed. I chose the lightest weight, 100% cotton fabric I could find, to use as a stabilizing layer both over top of and below the original quilt with the added batting. A light weight drapery lining was the perfect solution, 60" meant no additional seams.

I layered Snoopy between 2 layers of lining, then the quilt backing and top. It is now all basted and marked for quilting. This I hope to accomplish over the next 2 weeks, I also have the "Jukebox" baby quilt to quilt to do while I have my work place set for quilting.

I wanted to share however some of my learnings from this project:

The "Easy Circle Cut" ruler was fabulous. My circles were quickly cut, perfectly round, and it also was ideal to use as a template for marking the concentric circles for quilting. I love it, especially that I had bought it on sale half price a few months ago.





I really do not like fusing applique pieces on quilt projects. I think that fusibles should be kept for wall hangings and none cuddly quilting. The pattern directed me to fuse the circles on the quilt. The kit had just enough fabric to cut my pieces so I was not comfortable enough to experiment.

I would make this pattern again but I would use an alternate applique method for the circles.


Serendipity stuck twice in my Cara's blanket stories, as I realized when I was mostly done that while this pattern is called "Belle", the "Snoopy" quilt I chose to carefully rest inside is really a print of "Snoopy" and his sister "Belle". I guess this too was really always meant for Cara.

It will be quilted over the next few weeks, along with this:

Comments

  1. that photo of the girls could have been my younger sisters, complete with the Granny Square afghan and the rocking horse in the background.

    Love the new/old quilt.

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  2. That's a nifty little tool :) I bought the circle attachment for my machine and still have yet to try it. so many ideas and so little time :0)

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  3. What a wonderful quilt! I love those amy butler fabrics!

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  4. Anonymous12:15 am

    wedding dress

    Can I post a photo comment?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous12:28 am

    The dress. Picture by HRM Photography (site)

    wedding dress picture

    ReplyDelete

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