Hunters Star and the VW Bus

At a retreat last winter I finished a quilt top I’d started in Paducah over a year ago (click here for that post). I purchased the border fabric at Barry’s Fabrics in Birmingham England when I attended the 2024 Festival of Quilts (click here for that post), because my daughter-in-law had a thing for VW buses back then. When I finally got to this point, I wondered if Betsy still did. Her daughter Sommer assured me I should finish it.

Aside from the colors, there really wasn’t much of a connection between the center of the quilt and the buses. It just needed a little something extra. So, I used repliqué to make a side view of a bus and appliquéd it on top of the big dots in one of the blocks.

Just one was all that was needed, and it made the whole quilt more fun. This reminded me of a photo from my trip to Hawaii with my granddaughter Hanna back in 2024.

We were driving down the Road to Hana after a swim at the black sand beach.

Getting back to Betsy’s quilt – I asked Sommer what I should put on the back, and this piece of fleece (purchased when JoAnn’s was going out of business) was her choice ~ our last name is German for cherries after all 😁.

Then, a few weeks ago, I went on a retreat with my friend Marie and some of her friends ~ and I got it quilted and bound. It was finished 2 days before Betsy’s birthday – WooHoo!

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And one more thing…

Since the topic this week was about a quilt I made for my daughter-in-law, I can’t resist sharing about a quilt that recently resurfaced. I made it for Sommer years ago. She was just two and her mom, Betsy, had decorated her “big girl” room in these colors, with an owl theme. Sommer loved her dogs – Mosely and Nirshey, so I decide to make her a quilt combining all these things in a modern style.

Click here for the link to a post I did about it.

I have to admit ~ I never saw it on her bed after giving it to her for Christmas that year. Recently Sommer asked me if I ever made her a baby quilt. Duh – you can probably guess that I made her a few. But the one above was a real creative adventure for me, so I told her about it. She didn’t remember it. A few hours after we took her and Trey home she sent me this:

Grandma’s heart is happy!