It’s time to move H out of her toddler bed and into a twin. She’d been boycotting the toddler bed, which was her converted crib, since the beginning of the school year. She absolutely refused to sleep in it, she’d camp out on the floor. And when fall started to kick into gear, Adam and I realized we needed to get her a new bed before it got way too chilly for her to be on the floor.

So we ordered a bed from Pottery Barn Kids, and I took her shopping for sheets. I’d planned on buying her a comforter since we needed bedding ASAP, and I figured I’d make her a regular quilt for the spring. Or maybe even for Christmas. But she refused every comforter we looked at, and finally in Target I asked her why she didn’t want Mommy to buy her a blanket. She said, “Mommy make blanket.” And my heart grew three sizes that day!

This means that very evening I gathered up and cut all the fabrics I’d need. 68 prints in total, without a single repeat (my stash knows no boundaries). All cut into 10″ squares. A riot of colors, with plenty of purple sprinkled in because it is her favorite. But I didn’t go all purple, that’s a lot of look.

I was up until 2 or 3 in the morning cutting all of these out.

Then I pieced them together really quickly in a basic brick layout. Originally I thought I would just do straight patchwork squares, aligned in perfect rows. But I was cutting in such a hurry that I knew those seams would never line up. Offset rows hide all manner of sins.

I’d decided this would be a comforter, which meant it needed to be extremely puffy. I used two layers of Soft and Crafty Extra Loft batting, which made trimming this quilt kind of a bear. It did end up losing some of the layout on the sides, but in the end this was a small price to pay for All. The. Fluffy.

Then I thought I could get away with quilting maybe half a dozen tacks around it and calling it a day. Tada! A patchwork comforter made in 3 days.

But the tacks looked weird, and it wasn’t laying flat. Several tacks were removed.

Very flat. But barely quilted. So a few days after we introduced the bed I pulled it off and tacked and backstitched it at every seam.

This was on the recommendation of several members of the NYC Metro Mod Guild, who told me it would not survive the wash without more quilting. And she is 3. This thing will get washed a lot. Fortunately, I love how it came out. And somehow it managed to all drape pretty nicely, and I just love it. So does H.

I used the hot pink Tula Pink Freefall wide backing for the back, and oh that was just marvelous to work with. I love that the back is all in once piece.

It’s weird to think of H not being in that crib. It was so strange to watch Adam dismantle it and move it to the attic, and her room looked sort of uncanny without it.

But then we set up her new bed. And we hung her play tent from downstairs over it as a canopy. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but already it looks right at home. She looks right at home, like this is always how the room was supposed to look. She wants to be in that bed all the time. And frankly, so do Adam and I. It is the coziest spot in the house right now.

No more sleeping on the floor.