my friend shelley and i have been friends for 28 years...since we were 10. i was new at woodlands elementary school in longwood, florida, and she reached out to me and befriended me. our lives have diverged in different directions over the decades, but i still love her as a sister and when i go down to florida a couple of times a year i try to get together with her if time and circumstances allow.

back in july of 2013, she told me she was pregnant. i was overcome with joy for her (and her partner danny). just after christmas 2013, one day after, to be specific, she had her second child, a tiny little girl named danielle.

this quilt is for that special baby girl, little danielle, the new baby of my oldest, dearest friend. :)

i started it in september, at the CMQG fall retreat. i brought the biggest suitcase i had to the retreat, stuffed to the hilt with pink, orange and green fabrics (what shelley said she liked) from my stash and scrap bins. i pieced the whole top that weekend, and quilted it the week after the retreat. as with pretty much every quilt i make, it's a big jumble of new and old fabrics. the fluoro pink chevron fabric is from an old, VERY cherished and heavily loved dress of poppy's. :) i wanted to include it as a little "gift" from my baby to hers. the whole color scheme was really fun to work with; it felt really feminine and "florida" and maybe a tad "lily pulitzer", even. i swear that every other baby quilt I've made in the past few years has been for a boy (lovely though they are!) so it was nice to make something for a girl for once. :)