a charley harper baby quilt

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my post that I suffered a miscarriage last week.  At 12 weeks along we found out that our baby no longer had a heartbeat.  It was devastating.  Of course this is a really personal thing to talk about in a public place and I didn't take the decision to share lightly, but this experience has been a huge part of my life and it feels important to share it.

After I found out on Wednesday that I had miscarried I came home and felt a little lost.  I still felt physically ok but I was emotionally drained.  I had a stack of Charley Harper fabrics that I had purchased to make a quilt for the baby and I decided to go ahead and sew with them.  I don't know if I will hang onto the quilt or donate it or give away at a baby shower, but making this quilt felt right.

I love, love, love these Charley Harper prints and sewing with them was wonderful.  I mixed in some coordinating solids and prints since I had only purchased a few of the Charley Harper prints and I ditched my original plans and decided to make a simple patchwork quilt.  I am glad I did since I had a D&C on Thursday night and have mostly felt pretty terrible.  This was just the small, simple, quick project that I needed.

And making this did help.  This experience has made me very thankful for my crazy kids and my supportive husband and it has made me more sure than ever that another baby belongs in our family.

The back of the quilt is Charley Harper flannel an I am really on the fence about it.  This is the first time I have used Birch flannel and it is a much different texture than what I would normally expect, more gauzey, and is a little rougher and thinner than normal flannel.  I prewashed the fabric and it shrank more than I expected and I actually had to trim the quilt top down because the width of the fabric shrank so much (did you notice that the squares on the left are a little smaller? ha ha).  I am hoping that this is one of those fabrics that will get softer the more it is washed.  Despite my reservations the finished quilt does have a really nice weight to it.

The binding is a black crosshatch, I think it's from Lu Summers' Summersville.  I decided to us a zig zag stitch to sew the binding to the back of the quilt.  I hope that whatever I decide to do with this quilt it gets lots of use and I want it to hold up to washing.

Overall I am still sad but mostly feeling okay.  I am a still trying to rebalance things in my life and may be a little less responsive to comments and emails than normal so I apologize in advance.  I haven't even answered my phone for anyone other than my mom.  I know that many people go through this experience, almost all of my friends who have kids have experienced at least one miscarriage, and that I just need to take it easy for a little while.

Finished size: 40" x 48"

You can find Charley Harper prints here and here.