Connie Shows Off A Beautiful Baby Quilt!

Quilter’s Name: Connie Emmen from Boise, Idaho

Type of Quilt: Baby Quilt

Name of Patterns: Border is Animal Alphabet by Krista Hamrick/Original Design in center

Featured Date: 7-06-23

I’m Connie Emmen, owner of Cat in My Lap Quilting, LLC, a longarm quilting service, the smallest of small retirement businesses.  We live in the mountains above Boise, Idaho.  We have two new niblings (the gender neutral word for children of our siblings – my husband’s late older brother’s granddaughter and grandson, so our grandniece and grand nephew).  Our first great grandson is due in August.  Yes, I’m very busy designing and making crib quilts!

This quilt is our welcome gift to our grandniece Naomi, born in Los Angeles in March.  The outside border is machine-embroidered using OESD’s “Animal Alphabet” by Krista Hamrick.  It took a week to embroider it with my single-needle Pfaff Creative Icon, with mostly Floriani embroidery thread.  Batting is bamboo (formerly Orient) by Quilters Dream; fabrics from my stash and Marshall Dry Goods.  I quilt with an A-1 Elite longarm machine with Superior thread.  The binding is hand-finished.

I paper-pieced a 1/4 American beauty block for the sun in the upper left corner.  The grass at the bottom is varying sizes of green scraps from my stash, tans for the sand, and blue curved piecing for the ocean above the grass and sand.  The three Dresden flowers represent our nephew (blade wedges), his wife (petal wedges) and Naomi (alternating blades and petals, with 2 unique fabrics just for her).  Purchased embroidery designs are in the grass and sky.

The quilt wanted an encouraging children’s poem embroidered into it.  I read dozens of poems over a couple of weeks from famous and not-so-famous poets, but nothing worked – too long, too short, too dark – so I wrote one, describing the quilt.  I embroidered it under the sun, and quilted a frame around it, but it was hard to read, except under UV light.  So, to make it easier to read, I appliqued a copy onto the back in the same place after quilting, put the quilt back up onto my A-1 longarm frame and quilted through them both.  Here’s the poem:

My imaginary garden, I’m the only one can see.
     The butterflies are curly, and a fairy rides a bee.
     Another, dreaming magic thoughts sits on a sunflower bloom,
     A leprechaun is snoozing underneath his favorite ‘shroom.
     Two butterflies next catch my eye, one with a tail of flowers,
     Another sipping morning dew from purple crocus flowers.
     Dresden flowers, green hearts for leaves, sprout tall for me to see,
     Mommy’s petals, Daddy’s blades, the mix of both is me.
     The angel in the corner whispers, “Dream on every start.
     You’re known for what you do, my love,
     And loved for who you are.

We are going to LA to meet Naomi in a few days.  Hope you like it.

Connie Emmen
Cat in My Lap Quilting LLC

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