Decisions, Decisions (Shopping with Asta)

A couple of weeks ago my friend Simone commissioned me to make a quilt for her eleven year old daughter Asta.  I was hoping she would as, and was delighted when she did.  Asta is a lovely little girl and it just pleases me to no end to make something for her.

Simone gave me a general idea of what she was looking for and working with her requirements, I came up with 5 designs:

Unequal Nine Patch with intermittent plain blocks

Ohio Star

Unequal Nine Patch

Attic Window

Sawtooth Star

I emailed the designs to Simone and asked her to let me know which one Asta liked best.  She quickly got back to me, saying Asta liked "Number 2".  What neither of us realized, however, is that Simone's mobile (which she used to view the email) apparently displayed the images in a different order than I was seeing.  To me, the Ohio Star quilt was "Number 2", but that wasn't the one Asta wanted.

We'd agreed to take Asta to the fabric shop and let her pick out the fabric she wanted for the quilt.  I arrived at Simone's house with a print of the Ohio Star quilt and yardage estimates.  Asta glanced at the sheet and said "That's not the right one!"  We sorted it out and I ran home to have the correct quilt printed and get the yardage estimates from the design software.  This delayed us setting out by about half an hour, but that didn't matter - with the correct design in hand, we headed happily to the shop.

"Patchwork with Gail B" is where we went.  They've got thousands of bolts of fabric - literally thousands!  Asta indicated an interest in butterflies, so one of the clerks pointed us to where the butterfly prints were displayed.  I'd say there were easily 60 different butterfly prints.  Poor Asta was overwhelmed by the choices, but did find one she was fairly sure about after about half an hour of studying the options.  Then she was distracted by a ladybug print which, unfortunately, just wouldn't marry up with the butterflies she selected.  Butterflies won over ladybugs, so we moved on to try and find something that would go well with the butterfly print.

Another half hour or so later, the butterflies were overthrown in favor of a pairing involving two prints - one turquoise/white swirls, the other hot pink flowers.  We needed a third fabric for the design, but Asta was showing signs of fabric fatigue.  There's only so much you can expect of a lady of 11 years.  It was getting to be too much.  I suggested we simplify and get a solid to go with the prints she'd selected - so we headed to the wall where all the plain fabrics are displayed together.

Hanging on that wall was a display model for one of Gail B's many kits.  The design, called Strawberries and Cream, combines simple squares with elongated "Snowball" blocks - all in bright fruity pinks and whites.  Asta was immediately drawn to it, and it was plain to see that she'd fallen in love.  So back to the shelf went the turquoise and hot pink prints, and one of the clerks fetched a kit for us from the store room.

"Too easy!"  I smiled, "All we have to do now is get backing fabric."

A look of sheer panic came over Asta's face.

"Do I have to pick anything out?" she asked in a quiet but distressed tone.

"Nope!" I answered, noting the immediate relief washing over Asta's flushed cheeks.  I quickly located a bolt of fabric matching the backing on the display quilt and we were on our way home in no time.

Asta had a "date" with a playmate down the street from her house and Simone dropped her off there.  After Asta was out of the car, Simone made me laugh by saying, "I have to warn you, when you bring the finished quilt she's likely to say there's too much pink in it."