A Pocketful O' Friends

"A Pocketful O' Friends" includes two wall hangings with quilted pockets for the purpose of storing Beanie Babies and other stuffed animals. The design was based on the "Signs & Symbols" wall hanging on page 79 of "Scrap Quilts Fast and Fun", edited by Patricia Wilens. My daughter helped trace and cut out the shapes that were placed in the center of each pocket, including circles, squares, triangles, diamonds, hearts and stars. The fabrics were bright, high contrast colors, and black and white stripes, checks, polka dots and swirls. My son's quilt background was a fluorescent blue, and my daughter's was a fluorescent green. Both the background and pockets were quilted with a scribble pattern using black thread and a walking foot. Though no borders were created and the edges ended up jagged, I considered these two quilts an opportunity to practice quilting. My daughter and I decided that the more mistakes I make -- the better, since we wanted the quilts to look as if a child had slapped them together. The quilts were started around July 2001 and finished just before Christmas 2001.