Just under two years ago, I received a wonderful gift! Without my knowledge, two of my on-line friends (never met) organised a Nanny’s Birthday Surprise.
Wendy and Ineke set up a facebook page , blocked me so that I couldn’t see and they were off and running! They decided to send me 9 patch blocks in my favourite colour – purple, and they rallied others to join them. On my birthday, these envelopes started to arrive and to say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement!
Over the days following my birthday, the mailman kept calling and I received beautiful cards with words of friendship from people I didn’t know and each contained at least one 9 patch block. A couple didn’t have time to make a block and so sent me the fabric squares and one member was in New Zealand, away from her sewing gear and so sent me a purple NZ bag and silver fern badge. This bag held all of the blocks and cards while I tried to plan.
Ineke included two ‘special’ blocks – a heart and a bee ( the members of my Nanny Swapz call me Queen Bee)
I spread them all out to show the group what I had received:
Then the time just seemed to slip by as life kept ‘intruding’ in on my sewing plans! I worried that I wasn’t getting my quilt done and more time passed me by.
I played with the blocks, put them back in my purple NZ bag, played with them some more and finally decided to organise them into groups of four. I tried to look at colour values ie light and dark and also tried to spread the splashes of yellow to give balance. I then decided to make the blocks the heroes of the quilt, I needed a light sashing with a medium corner block.
I loved how it all came together – Lorraine had sent me three blocks so they became corner blocks and the Happy Birthday block from Heather was perfect for the other corner!
and I was soon searching for a suitable backing.
With the backing sorted, I still wasn’t finished – I still had the fabric squares and a mugmat sent by Mary. I decided to contact Mary and asked if I could incorporate the mugmat into the quilt and Mary was most generous and gave me the Ok to undo the mugmat or to do whatever I liked . The mugmat became the feature on the back of the quilt where I wanted to acknowledge all of the contributors. I decide to do this by embroidering all of the names around the mugmat top, separated by the pansies from the back of the mugmat and to me it was ‘perfect’!
I then cut up the fabric squares and made two smaller 9 patch blocks which I decided to set on point. I had now succeeded in using all of my gifts in the creation of my quilt and I was so excited!
It was now time to pin!
For the quilting, I decided to ‘eyeball’ diagonals on the 9 patches and stitch in the ditch to preserve Ineke’s blocks and Clare’s pansy block.
I thought I would use the backing fabric for the binding as well but it looked dreadful so off to the stash! I found a pack of purple 2.5″ strips that I received as Queen in one of the ‘hives’ we had run at Nanny Swapz and would you believe that it matched a fabric used by one of the quilters in the making of the 9 patch blocks?? Perfect!!!
My good friend Sue then offered – no insisted – that she would love to hand stitch the binding for me and my quilt was done!
To Wendy and Ineke – Thank You!! To all of the wonderful women who took the time to do this for me – Thank You!! I apologise for the time delay but hope that you like what I finally came up with in my Nanny’s Birthday Surprise Quilt.
It certainly was a birthday that I will never forget – I was truly humbled by your gestures of friendship
and my wish is that one day I might get to thank each of you in person!
Until next time
Nanny xx
So, so so happy to have been part of surprising you, Nanny! Awesome to see the finished Quilt!!!
Thank you Ineke (my special bee) and yes its looking pretty special over here!! 🙂
Oh Nanny it’s just so awesome like you are to us! I am just so glad we had hot nights that I couldn’t sleep and could chat with Ineke and I would also so love to meet you and give you a huge hug and also to meet Ineke one day. We do live in such a big wonderful country. I would also love to thank everyone who jumped on board of the birthday surprise boat with us. It was truly a delight.
Thank you Wendy and yes, we will have to make it happen!! What a meeting that would be! :0
Aww yay!! It turned out beautifull, well done Nanny! <3
{can't believe it was nearly 2 years ago!}
Kate recently posted…I’m Still Alive!
I know Kate! Time just flew by but now it is done and I love it! Thank you xx
Beautiful gesture and a beautiful quilt, Margie.
Pam @Threading My Way recently posted…QAYG Zippered Music Pouch
Thanks Pam – it was a wonderful surprise that I will never forget! 🙂
Love the quilt you’ve made.
Thank you Lorraine for helping to make it happen – I love it too! 🙂