The Best of Sewing with Nancy

When you learn that soon a baby will arrive in your family, is your first thought, "I'll make a quilt?" That's what my Nancy's Corner guest thought, plus she customized her labor of love to fit her granddaughter's special needs. Please welcome Debbie Hall, who made this very tactile, interesting quilt for Cecilia. And your granddaughter was going to be born and you wanted to make a quilt, so tell our viewers the process. Well, I asked the parents to save all her first-year clothing, and that I would put together a quilt for the baby for her first-year clothing. And when we found out that she was blind, she had ONH, which is op tic nerve hypoplasia. She wasn't going to be able to see for the rest of her life. I decided to make it a very tactile quilt. I added braille dots and a lot of feely things. I made it very rough. I didn't want to make it very formal. I wanted to make it very informal, where there's a lot of feely things. I put together all her-- I took all her clothing and I cut out all the interesting things, the embellishments and pockets. Embroidery. Embroidery sayings. There were quite a few for baby clothes. There were an awful lot of them. And I cut them all out and added the iron-on interfacing on the back. And then, as I collected different kinds of fabrics throughout the years, I brought all those out and put together the different blocks. Sure, so, we have here the-- Let's just look at this block for example, the smile block. You fused the blocks to fusible. You placed the blocks onto fusible interfacing. You have three layers here. But then, here are puffy paint braille dots. Right, right. So, the puffy paint dots say, "Smile." Because that's what the word says behind it. And Cecilia will be able to learn how to -- What it says. - What it says, and her mom and dad will know, obviously -- How to read braille, right. Each pocket was from a former clothing, and each pocket contains an item made out of felt and hand stitched. And then, on top of the pocket, it says what's inside. So here this one says "heart." And this is interesting because this quilt is fully washable, but you wouldn't think about washing an applique. - Sewn pieces, right. So, look what Debbie did. She added snaps so that these can be unsnapped, and then, put back into place. Throw it in the wash machine. Bulk of what you have is machine washable. This is all topstitched or appliqud. Zigzags around the edges. And here we have -- I mean, it's just fun for me to feel the layers, so I can imagine what fun she'll have. Now, you haven't given this to her yet. No, she gets it after the show. (Both laughing) First on TV, then a gift. That's right. You did hand applique. Is this one of the first quilts you've made? This is the only quilt I've ever made. Yeah, that's what I thought. - I'm not a quilter. But you definitely have collected fabrics. So, for someone who hasn't quilted before, to make a quilt like this, this is quite amazing. - Well, thank you. I think it's admirable. - I had a lot of help, though. Well, of course. Don't we all? - Yeah. Sometimes, when you think of quilting, you don't always think of tulle. Or, here, we have some stenciling that's done with-- Sparkle paint. - Sparkle paint and so forth. This makes it quite phenomenal. And you have some leftover fabrics that you're going to be making into another project. My last project, my latest project for her is making a quiet book. And I'm gonna add some of the patches from her clothing and also add zippers and buckles and anything else that has things for her to feel and to work with. So, this is recycling or upcycling clothing. - Mm-hmm. It's making it very personalized. Oh, yeah. These are all her clothing from her first year. And then she'll be able to learn, as she grows a little bit older, spelling and words and so forth. I think, Debbie, this is very-- As I said earlier, a labor of love. And I appreciate you doing this. - Thank you. What did you find most fascinating about making this quilt? I learned that putting plaids with stripes and different colors, opposite colors, it worked. It all works. - It certainly does. It does, yeah. You have a great collection of prints and stripes and it all is very appealing. I thank you for being our guest. Sharing this great quilt and I know your granddaughter will treasure it. Oh, I think she will, too. Thank you. - Thanks again. Thank you for watching us on Sewing With Nancy during this two-part series of "Solving the Pattern Fitting Puzzle." If you'd like to learn more about Cecilia's quilt or this two-part series, of course, go to NancyZieman.com. Click on videos, and you can watch four or five seasons worth of Sewing With Nancy videos right there and also connect to our Nancy's Corner guests. You can also join us on social media platforms and also join our blog. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now.