I finally finished Julia’s quilt and shipped it off to her, along with a few gifts for her new daughter.  I’m happy with how the quilting turned out.  I was super torn with how to do the actual quilting, especially since I’ve only done a total of 4 quilts.  I knew I wanted to emphasize the diagonals in the middle section, and I thought outlining the large stars would look good.  At the last minute, I decided to do the small stars too.  They were actually easier than the big stars and went quickly.  I wasn’t able to get any good photographs that really show my work, but that’s okay.  I also did the binding, agonizing over the correct shade of red.  I sent my friend photos with 3 choices, but the lighting in the house is bad so the photos weren’t super accurate and she left it to my judgement. In the end, I think I went with the right shade of orangey-red.  Gracie misses this quilt.  She took every opportunity to curl up on it.

Along with the quilt, I sent a little sweater dress I knit.  The pattern was super easy, although I made some modifications based on feedback from other Ravelry users.  (Here’s the ravelry info.)  I used some leftover Sundara yarn which is super soft.  The only downside is that it’s hand wash, but hopefully that isn’t a big deal.

I also sent a little elephant which I made from the book Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.  The elephant was relatively easy to make and I think it turned out well.  In fact, I made two of them.  One is for another friend who is having a baby in a few weeks.  I think the hardest part of the elephant was stuffing it.  I took my time doing it, and once it was done, it looked like I should have stuffed it some more.  My only complaint with the finished product is that they are hard to photograph.  It doesn’t help that in both cases, I was in a hurry too.

The last thing I included in the box for Julia was a cotton hat.  A basic roll brimmed hat, but with nice soft Blue Sky Organic Cotton Yarn.

It’s a big relief to get those things out to Julia.  She received the box and was very happy with how her quilt turned out and she like the gifts.  Yay!  Now I can focus on packing which is good, because we are moving in about 10 days.  Ack!