Unicorn Quilt

One early morning in December of 2008 my stepdaughters house burned to the ground and when I arrived she stood there in her pajamas with no shoes holding my grand daughter shivering as it was 40 degrees out. I was relieved that they were unhurt but then on the other hand they lost everything but the pajamas she was wearing. My other grandchildren were in school that morning and their father was at work.

Red Cross put them in a motel for the week until they were able to find them somewhere to live. The community helped them out alot donating clothes and household items to get them started again but one thing she lost that could not be replaced was her unicorn collection. Melissa loved unicorns and had collected all sorts of things with unicorns on them. Statues, snowglobes with unicorns in them and all sorts of unicorn things but they were gone.

So I decided to make her a quilt with a unicorn theme to try and replace a few unicorns for her. I bought fabrics all shades of blues and purples and searched for unicorn embroidery designs and started to work in January of 2009.

I worked thru out the next several months machine embroidering unicorn blocks and making rail fence blocks that would make up the design of Melissa's quilt.

I kept the quilt a secret thruout the whole year. Several times Melissa came over to visit and I would scramble in my sewing room to hide the quilt.

After machine embroidering most of the summer and piecing the quilt together I sent the quilt off to Dottie Lavine of Boca Raton to have it quilted. After all the months of work I was afraid to try and quilt it myself so left it in the hands of a real professional. Dottie asured me she would have it back in plenty of time for me to finish binding the quilt in time.

My plan was to give the quilt to Melissa for Christmas 2009 which was one year since the fire. My last finishing touches were to embellish the quilt with hot fix crystals in shades of blue, purple and diamond like which I finished up on Christmas Eve.

Melissa loves the quilt and was so surprised. I can't believe we kept the secret the whole year. This last photo is the quilt label I designed for her quilt.