Officially a big girl.

As of tonight, MacKenzie is officially a big girl.  

I've been holding her back from this milestone for yeeeaarrrrs.  I started her Big Girl Bed Quilt back in 2009.  I made the top, and then promptly folded it up and stuck it in a closet.  The quilt was designed around the room she had in our Oahu house, painted green and purple, with an owl theme.  Some may recognize this picture I uploaded, on her first night in the new bed with the unfinished quilt top laid out on top of her:

This dates from September 2009. Yes, almost three YEARS ago.  (Isn't she cute, by the way?)

A hundred things kept me from completing the dang thing.  A hundred, and none, if that makes sense.  But finally.  It's done.  The room I made it for has been repainted (and is now rented to a preist).  The matching curtains don't fit on her new windows.  But none of this really matters.  She's got her big girl quilt.  

In our groovy old house here in Monterey, Kenzie has the coolest room.  It's the finished attic, and has it's own stair/ladder entry.  Once upstairs, it's all low ceilings and reading nooks, shag carpet and coziness.  The perfect room for a little girl.  She keeps all her small toys up there away from her brother's sticky destructive fingers, and has plenty of hidey spots for stashing books to read once it's lights out time.  We call it her "upstairs wonderland".

The dim light and low ceiling make photography a nightmare, so these didn't turn out the best.  But here's an idea.  I loved all the bird-themed fabric so much that I couldn't bring myself to cut it up.  I left it in rather big chunks and randomly sewed them together for the top.  I'm not sure I can even technically call it a quilt.  More of a cover?  Anyway.  The owl print there on the bottom was the originally inspiration for the (Hawaii) room, and I have a lovely pair of matching curtains tucked away in a box somewhere.  Hopefully at our next house they'll have a home.

 In the meantime, I repurposed an old skirt into these.  Hard to tell the colors, but it's a soft grey with blue roses print, and peach lace trim.  I quite like them.

And, on the topic of windows, the little stinker also happens to have the best view from her window.   She likes to look out at night at the "city" across the water.  That's the bay there, and if you squint, you can see the mountains in the distance.  In the mornings, you can't see any of this because of the fog.  Solid grey.

I bought the nicest yellow solid- something horrendously expensive- for the backing, but underestimated the yardage by a huge amount.  Here's the weird piecing that I filled in the gaps with.  It bothers me, as it doesn't match the front, but Kenzie calls it the "night side" and seems happy with it.  And she's what counts.

This labeled egg fabric is her favorite from the quilt.  It might be mine, as well.  I imagine her reading it to herself at night, slowly reciting the bird's names as she falls asleep.  It seems a very relaxing thing to do.

I have to admit, I feel quite relaxed myself.  Three years is a long time to kick yourself for not finishing something.
And now I can start all the other projects I'll let sit around in the closet.