I have the pleasure of knowing one of God's Angels. My daughter attended Girl Scouts while we lived in San Jose and I had the pleasure of getting to know this beautiful, black woman from NOLA.
Everyone calls her Mz. Fran. She wears many hats. She runs the concessions at the school where she is a teaching assistant. She is also a Girl Scout Leader for 5 troops. I helped cookie mom/boss for all 5 of the troops one year. She's helped many Girl Scouts to become confident young women.
I was compelled to ask what were her four favorite colors. I added those to my notes and let it marinate until a quilt came along that had her name on it.
When watching one of my quilt YouTube channels, Missouri Star Quilt, she showed a quilt she called Disappearing hourglass or Crazy 8. That would be the quilt I was going to put together for Mz. Fran.
Take two 10" squares, put them pretty side facing, sew all the way around, cut the piece corner to corner to form 4 half square triangles. Rotate the squares to form an hourglass and sew them back together. Cut equidistant from the center lines. Rotate the pieces to form a crazy 8 and sew them back together. It's all explained at The Missouri Star Quilt Company.
I always hope to learn something with each quilt I make. This was no exception. Jenny made it look so easy sewing on the bias. Also, not to worry about my obsession to align all seams because after the final cutting and rotating, the lines aren't supposed to line up.
When sewn together and the borders on, off to the quilter it went. I had it quilted edge to edge in meandering hearts to go with the heart of gold I found in this friend. The back is a wonderful piece of burgundy leaves that you can probably see in the bottom of the picture.
Part of the giving of a quilt is watching the recipient's eyes light up when they open the box. This quilt was completed during the COVID-19 pandemic and hand carrying it across state lines was not an option at the time it was finished. I found a really nice backpack that I could fold the quilt inside and that went inside a box to ship. I encouraged MzFran to call me before she opened the box and I would conference with her while she opened it. That was the next best thing I could think of.