To say my little Monkey is obsessed with books would be an understatement. To say she is obsessed with Maisy books in particular would be the understatement of the century.
We actually didn't originally own any Maisy books - don't ask me how we managed that considering that the Monkey has so many books they barely fit in her room. But the fact was we didn't, and my first realisation of the girl's Maisy fascination came from picking her up from child care one day a while ago.
Monkey and friends were sitting on the floor reading a Maisy book with their carer, and she was hooked. She got so excited everytime the carer turned a page and she saw Maisy doing something different or a new character. And to top it all off she kept jumping on her knees and saying 'Maisy' over and over like it was her first Christmas. (Well maybe second Christmas, she was only four months old on for the first one and more interested in eating the paper than anything else. )
Needless to say, that weekend I bought the Monkey her very first Maisy book and she is in love with it as much as ever.
So, long story long, when I began sewing and started spending countless hours drooling over fabrics and came across a Maisy quilting panel I nearly died. I immediately knew I had to make a Maisy quilt for my little girl for her second birthday.
And hey, with her second birthday less than two months away *sniff* it was time to get started right?!
So I have been pondering on this for a while with the wonderful input of a gorgeous friend. normally I am not a bold colour girl, and really struggle with how to match such bright colours as there are in this:
The panel that started it all
There were a heap of other fabrics in the Maisy range but all were way too much for my liking so I headed off to the ever faithful Spotlight and grabbed these pieces of gorgeousness.
Ah polka dots ... how I love thee
And now came the hard part - working out what to do! I spent hours crawling around on the floor, putting each and every one of those panels on a million different backgrounds until I was finally happy.
In the end I decided to go with each panel having a wide red polka dot border, and then a smaller light blue dotted border. And today I got sewing the first row of panels and was very happy with the result (after once again working out that Maths wasn't my thing and cursing myself for going patternless yet again!)
Single panel - I am planning on twelve of these all up.
The row of three, which will end up being four rows in total.
After all the angst over colour choice I am really happy with it so far and can't wait to get some more time to get into it in a couple of days.
I do have other plans for a darker blue border around the whole thing and maybe an applique panel at the base but I am playing that one by ear at the moment.
I am so excited to be making the Monkey something I know she will treasure and truly love, there is something beautifully satisfying about that.
