Blogger's Quilt Festival #2: Jan & Kitty's Amish Caravan (Quilts 42 & 43)

Amy's Creative Side is hosting a Bloggers Quilt Festival as a fun way to share our work and meet other blogging quilters. Since this has been my year of social quilting, I can't help but join the fun. And, because this has been my year of social quilting, I have lots of quilts in progress, but not as many finishes...yet. 

For my first entry, I shared my latest quilt, Fireworks for Ingrid. For my second entry, I'm sharing a project that I never made time to write up before, a collaboration with my father-in-love we called "Jan & Kitty's Amish Caravan."

My in-laws live in the Netherlands, so when we built our house, we built it with a second master suite knowing that when they came to visit, they would stay awhile. When they came in 2015, they stayed for 6 weeks. 

When you have company for that long, you can't spend all your time on vacation, so while Niels was at work and D was at school, Dad and I decided to make quilts for their new caravan. I had offered to make the quilts, but he wanted to make them together. It ended up being  fun way for us to connect. 

Jan wanted clean lines, dark prints, and an easy pattern. Once we landed on a design, it was off to Joann for fabric selection. It was a fun afternoon stretching my mastery of Dutch as we discussed the nuances of color.

I was able to see my Dutch parents in a new light as I guided them through the process. They are a really good team, and even when they have differences of opinion, they are able to work things out.

Jan wanted to do as much of the actual sewing as possible. He took to the machine like a natural. 

Because we live close to Amish country, we decided that it would be fun to incorporate a bit of our local culture in the quilts. While Jan was assembling the top, I created the Amish horse and buggy on my Silhouette Cameo. I like that as they travel around Europe in their caravan, they are taking a bit of us with them. 

All those curves and tiny parts were intimidating to a new quilter, so I did the applique.

Once the buggies were attached, I handed the reins back to Jan and he straight line quilted the tops before I took over to do the label and binding.

Such a satisfying feeling to finish a quilt.

When Jan and Kitty returned to the Netherlands, they sent me this picture of their quilts in their caravan. It makes me so happy and loved to see them.

Come on over to Amy's Creative Side to see more amazing quilts as part of the festival.

Also linked to:
Design Wall Monday @ Small Quilts & Doll Quilts
Finished or Not Friday @ Busy Hands Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Free Motion by the River
Let's Bee Social #195 @ Sew Fresh Quilts
Midweek Makers #90 @ Quilt Fabrication
Monday Making @ Love Laugh Quilt
Moving It Forward @ Em's Scrapbag
Needle & Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation
Oh Scrap @ Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Off the Wall Friday @ Nina Marie
Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She
Wednesday Wait Loss #32 @ The Inquiring Quilter
Whoop Whoop Friday @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict
WIPs on Wednesday @ Esther's Blog