The thunderstorm quilts

We live in the Southeastern United States where strong thunderstorms are a common occurrence in the Summer.  Unfortunately, my children have always been very afraid of the storms, and we have spent many nights huddled together in living room during the storms.  When my children realize that there is a thunderstorm, there is a chaotic rush to gather up all of their pillows, blankets, and beloved stuffed animals and make their way downstairs.  In an effort to lessen the chaos, I thought it would be a good idea to create a thunderstorm basket filled with quilts, stuffed animals, card games, flashlights, etc to be kept in the living room in the event of a storm.

I set out to create quilts for them that would give them a sense of comfort and distract them from the storm.  I also used fabrics for the quilt top that I hoped would inspire conversation during the storm. I thought that all of the cute images in Sarah Jane's Children at Play fabrics and Munki Munki fabrics would be a great inspiration for conversation.

Last night I paper pieced a girl that is to represent my middle daughter for the back of her thunderstorm quilt.  Since I am making thunderstorm quilts for each of my children, I wanted to do something to personalize each of their quilts.  I taught myself how to paper piece by following some tutorials on You Tube, so I may or may not be doing it the proper way.  Nonetheless, I like the results I was able to achieve.  I have been inspired by all of the amazing paper pieced items that I have been seeing on Flickr.  I really like paper piecing because I feel like you can create something very unique.  I have so many ideas floating around in my head for future paper pieced projects.
I was going to make this girl a test run, but I am happy with the results so I think I will use this block.  Plus it is very time intensive, so the idea of a test run is kind of a waste.  I did not have any solid yellow for her blonde hair, so I used some Joel Dewberry Heirloom Blockprint Blossom fabric scraps from my Swoon quilt.  I like the accidental highlights that the white in the printed fabric gave her hair.  My middle daughter has a lot of natural highlights in her hair, so it is cool that I achieved that look unintentionally.

This afternoon I plan on making a paper pieced boy for my son.  I hope all goes well, and that I do not need to use my seam ripper often.