When my cousins had their first daughter about four years ago, I asked if they would rather have a knitted baby blanket, or a quilt, and they picked the quilt. So I pulled out a baby quilt that my grandmother had helped me start making when I was a teenager, (which had fallen into the black hole of unfinished projects that is my closet), sewed it all together and appliqued on little ducks, and sent it off.
Well, last year they had a second daughter, and I could hardly make a quilt for one daughter and not the other, so I made this:
The ladybugs are iron-on instead of applique: the idea of sewing on all the little ladybug dots by hand made my head hurt just a little bit.
The pattern is the same one my grandmother always used, which is to say none whatsoever, which made for some fun math and re-jiggering so that the two quilts hopefully sort of match. It’s not perfect, but I think it turned out okay. And it got me started on other projects.