Baby Quilts...

My brother and his wife are having a baby. This is the second time they've been pregnant; the first time, they lost the baby 7 months into the pregnancy. I started a quilt for that baby (River), but hadn't finished it when I got the news that she had died. I haven't looked at the quilt since. It didn't seem right to finish it and give it to some other baby when I had made it for her, but it really didn't seem right to throw it away. I still haven't decided what to do with it, so for the time being it's in a drawer.

When I found out that they were pregnant again, I decided to make a new quilt. I debated whether I should start a quilt now, wait until they were further along in the pregnancy, or maybe even wait until the baby was born. On the one hand, it seemed like it might somehow be bad luck to finish a quilt before we knew if the baby would be ok... but on the other hand, I didn't want to go into this pregnancy feeling like a cloud of doom is hanging over it. I decided that I would make the quilt.

The last several times I've seen my sister-in-law, she's been wearing these silly sock monkey slippers that she got at Target. She loves them. She wears them all the time. When I found out they were having another baby and started thinking about a quilt, that was what popped into my head: sock monkeys.

The quilt's square, about 40" on a side. Because my brother lives in Florida, I wanted to make a fairly lightweight quilt so I used flannel instead of batting. I wanted the quilt to still be cuddly, so I backed it with flannel as well.

I will always miss never having gotten to know River.