
This is, as I said in the title, my second quilt. My first measures about 5" x 12" and was made to go along with a doll bed as a Christmas gift for our niece in 2007. So I've moved from doll quilt to lap quilt; hopefully my next one (on the sewing schedule for September of this year) will be big enough for a full/queen bed.

I had a lot of fun picking the fabrics for this project; the blue and chocolate was the starting point, since Maria loves that combination. The top was machine-pieced, but the quilting was done by hand; I used embroidery floss and did long running stitches along the length of every other strip. The hardest part was putting on the bias tape, since the quilt was so thick; I used contrast stitching, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but it makes my mistakes a bit more evident. But that's okay. It will be nice and warm to help keep Maria cozy through New England winters.