In the Habibi Dancers, when a woman has a baby, the troupe makes a quilt for her. This is intended as a decorative quilt, a wall quilt rather than one that would be used on a bed. Each dancer makes a square (or two or three) and one woman volunteers to sew them all together.

This year we had three women expecting babies at the same time. And for some reason we are all dragging our feet longer than usual getting the quilts done. The first woman had her baby in November if I remember right, April had Isabel in April, and the last baby followed last in July.

So last week I finished the first square. It’s a block print of a woman dancing, I made on soft printing material. It was printed with Jacquard fabric paint (the best I’ve ever tried) on fabric provided to me by the woman making this quilt (we all have the same background fabric, to unify the piece). Then I sewed on a handful of turquoise glass beads. There is a border of a half inch on each side so that the seams can be sewn.

Of course, when I’m done with things I always know what I would do differently if I did it again. The cool news is that I have two more tries coming!!!