The Monkey Escape Quilt

        We were still under a heat warning this morning but a thunderstorm came through right at the supper hour and it really cooled off. Tomorrow will be back to more average temperatures for this time of the year. A F1 tornado touched down in a town about an hour from here on Wednesday night and there may have been one an hour the other way from us from tonight’s storm…but not confirmed a tornado yet…could be just high wind.

        Besides card making and scrapbooking I really enjoy quilting as well. Two or three times a year I surprise someone with a quilt. I made one earlier for the son of my daughter’s friend and this time I made one for the sister-in-law of the same daughter. Sarah is a lovely lady who does a lot of kind and charitable things and I decided she needed a quilt. She loves monkeys so I made sure it had monkeys on it. I could not find a monkey quilt panel suitable for an adult so I decided to go a different route – a string quilt with appliquéd monkeys.

         I actually made two quilts. The first one is similar but the fabrics were all darker colours and the monkeys were smaller. I decided I didn’t like it…at least not for Sarah….so it’s being donated to ChildCan. I’m sure there will be a young child diagnosed with cancer that loves monkeys and will be happy to have it. Joe thought it was fine and I was too fussy….he could be right but I still made another one.

Here’s the quilt…..which I named Monkey Escape...which is explained why below.

        To make a string quilt you just sew strips of fabric in different widths across a 7” piece of very thin white fabric and then cut it down to 6.5”; and then sew four of them together to make a 12.5” quilt block….I made 30 of the large blocks so there are 6 down and 5 across which means I made 120 6.5” blocks….this is a great scrap buster…..well in my case it makes a dent in the stash! I love making these. Because I wanted the monkeys to stand out I made sure I made 12 small blocks with very light white or beige centres and then a floral print at the ends. The monkeys were then appliquéd into the middle of the blocks.

Here are the monkeys.

        Notice that the monkeys are all holding flowers! On the label it says something like the monkeys had to escape so they could bring Sarah flowers. She loved it!...which is all the thanks I need.

        That’s all for a thunderstormy Friday, September 13, 2019. Tonight is a rare harvest moon but I doubt if we will see it unless the storms pass by quicker than they are predicted. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Try to take the time to smile at a stranger over the weekend. You never know what they are dealing with and a smile from a stranger could be the hi-lite of their weekend.