Rollerskating fairy quilt block

Hello everybody!

Today I want to talk to you about this! 

When I got married 16 years ago, my Mum organised for a quilt to be made with half the blocks coming from my side of the family and the other half coming from my husband's. Here we are with the quilt they made us.

So, with my sister getting married, my Mum organised the same thing for Vanessa and Jon-Frode. This was done unbeknownst to them, in complete secret and I had the privilege to be one of the people asked to make a block for the quilt.

It took me a long time to come up with my concept for this. I wanted to do something that was special to me and Vanessa, that wasn't musical (because I thought music was a bit too obvious). I watched the other people in the secret group posting their blocks, but even though they were all awesome and thoughtful blocks, I remained uninspired. 

Eventually, the idea hit me. As children my sister and I had a game we would play, where I was the Fairy of Stilts, and she was the Fairy of Rollerskates. I would make a roller skate block. And even better, one of the sets of rollerskates we had was orange and cream in colour, so I could use off-cuts from my bridesmaid's dress.

I looked up some images of rollerskates online, and drew a version out on paper. Placing this version on the base block I had been supplied with, I realised it was a little small, but I didn't want to redraw, as I was happy with the overall shape and I was unlikely to draw it as well a second time. 

So I drew out a pattern for some fairy that I could superimpose the roller skate on.

I used some leftover lace to make the wings. 

I then cut the paper roller skate to make my appliqué pattern pieces, and cut my fabric pieces out.

I hand appliquéd all the pieces, using blanket stitch. I had to be careful about the order I stitched the pieces in, as some of them overlapped each other.

For the laces, I cut slits in the block and laced a matching piece of ribbon through. I added a second length of ribbon to be able to tie the bow at the end.

My Mum pieced all the blocks together, quilted and finished the quilt. She and I presented the finished quilt to the newly weds at the end of the speeches.

You can see my block on the left hand side, second row up from the bottom. The bride and groom were really happy to receive the quilt, it was made particularly poignant as the groom's mother and step-mother had been unable to travel to the wedding, but had both contributed to the quilt. And I spoke to my sister and she absolutely remembered the game we used to play (and apparently her step-sons didn't believe she knew how to rollerskate so she was happy to have evidence).

All the blocks from the various contributors are really impressive and meaningful, and I am proud to have been part of this project, and again, proud of my sister and new brother-in-law. Love you guys!

Thanks for reading!