a garden of hugs and kisses

I set this photo up about a month ago but didn't get any farther - obviously a sign of just how crazy my summer has been.

As typical for the summer, work in the studio has been slow - I really don't get much quilting done when the summer is warm and when there's so much other stuff to do. That's not to say, I don't fantasize a great deal and make lots of plans - now summer time is great for that! Of course, whether my plans pan out is another thing, but you get the drift.

I finished this quilt in early august. I made it as a 'welcome to the world' gift for friends who were blessed with a dughter in late June. This easy peasy pattern has become one of my faves for baby quilts, I find it lends itself to a great deal of color play! I like to add borders of small squares to some of the quilts I make; this time I had the idea to put "X" and "O" in each square so the main quilt is symbolically surrounded with a garden of hugs and kisses. I stitched the outside border with some of the lyrics from "the garden song" - I like to imagine that ella's mama and papa will sing the garden song to her while she's getting ready to go to bed!