the one inspired by her empty cube

Today's a deadline day at work. We order pizza and stand in the hallway and eat as a staff  or grab a few slices and head back to our offices to hunker down on the files that we need to close before the day's end. There's always a flurry of activity on deadline day and I tend to get deep in the zone and ignore everything else happening around me.

Today, though, as I rushed back to my office after grabbing a slice, I found myself stopping briefly at a coworker's usually bright and bubbly cubicle. She has been out on maternity leave for a couple of weeks now and I feel like this is the first time I've passed her dark, empty, quiet cube since she's been gone and really noted a difference. I don't know why today was different. I don't know this coworker tremendously well, but her spirit and laughter always bring welcome breaks in our sometimes-stressful, deadline-driven work environment. And, to tell you the truth, I kind of miss her presence around here. Maybe I noticed because it's been a little bleak around here . . . who knows.

But her empty cube reminded me that I wanted to share the gift I made for her and her new little one.

The new mama is a sweet, bright, and unique person—great sense of humor and an appreciation for all things vintage (she is a BIG old movie buff). I found out the baby's room was going to be inspired by Mary Poppins and that she'd chosen purple as the main color for the room. After starting on something a little more "sweety" for the new baby girl, I changed my path and decided to pull out my collection of Heather Ross's Far Far Away II. I felt like the collection had a kitsch value that the new mama would adore and that it might fit nicely into the color scheme of the baby's room.

I went with a randomly-sized, wonky star design and fussy cut my scraps of FFA II for the centers. I pulled scraps from other projects to create most of the points of the stars.

After much debate, I decided to go with the cool Kona Ash as my neutral.

I wanted to go slightly textural for the backing and ended up using a leftover piece of chenille in pink for the back.

One of the new colors of satin binding at Jo-Ann were the  perfect finishing touch for this one. It was a labor of love to hand stitch that slippery binding to the fluffy backing. But, in the end, I think it was worth it.

Some large, random hand quilting were the perfect finish. I like that this feels contemporary and sweet all at the same time.

I'd like to think that mama and baby are at home cuddling under this one right now . . . but something's telling me that this unseasonably warm day we're having probably has them out enjoying the sun.