red and white, almost complete!

 First off, my sweet little Kenna just turned 4 months old.  She is the sweetest babe on the planet, I honestly believe that.  She is rolling all over the place now and it makes me smile.  I am happy for the new partially-mobile phase of life for her, but saddened that the tiny infant stage is gone.

Okay!  Here is the quilt my Grandma Lela Ackerman Chappell made laid out on my bed.  I talked about it a few weeks ago here.  I need to talk to my aunts and see if they know a time frame of when it was made.  Red and white quilts were very popular to make from about 1840 to the 1920s, with the biggest surge in the 1880s.  Since my grandma couldn't have made a quilt when she was just a child, she must have made it later on in her life.  Perhaps making a copy of one of her grandmother's quilts???  hmmm!

Anyway, I began cutting out my red and white fabric after I did all the math to figure out how to reproduce this quilt of my grandma's earlier in the week.  I cut 3 inch strips and got busy! I kept thinking as I was using my handy rotary cutter and mat, how much faster and more accurate it is for me to cut fabric than it was for my grandma to cut fabric with scissors and templates.

Here is my progress yesterday afternoon.  I now have the entire quilt sewn into 7 rows, I just need to sew those 7 rows together and put on the borders.  It has gone together REALLY fast and has been so much fun to make, but I think I liked the math part the best - making my own pattern.

 I made approximately 37 trips from the front room where the quilt was laid out, to the kitchen where I iron, and then into the sewing room, where my sewing machine is kept.  I passed this hallway mirror too many times and so I once took advantage of that mirror with my little helper.  She is a sweet little bundle that kept me busy moving her from the bumbo in the kitchen, to the walker in the living room, and into the bouncer in the sewing room!