Collegiate Misgivings

This project has been begun and tossed aside too many times to count, and I know why.  I have been ashamed.

My oldest son’s birthday comes shortly after Christmas --- each year!  It is usually a monumental challenge to come up with gifts for him that differentiate his day from the usual holiday festivities.  We always cover the table with multi-colored jelly beans and have homemade pizza (or calzones) and Buffalo wings, and for awhile my husband would take him and some friends for an activity; but coming up with gifts has ever been a puzzler.

One year, a couple of weeks before Christmas, I walked into a fabric store and saw some collegiate flannel that I determined would be perfect for my son and his brother for their bedroom.  I imagined our family setting up quilts during the holiday break and sitting around them for a few hours while we tied them both.  The only problem was that there was Someone cutting into the fabric and it appeared that several additional Someones were waiting for it.  The store was crowded with shoppers, and my time was limited.  I left the store, wistfully hoping some of that fabric would still be available later.

A couple of hours afterward, the rush was gone.  I walked in and made a beeline for the rack where I hoped to find the flannel.  Pulling two coordinating bolts of fabric off the shelf, I walked over to the tricot racks at the rear of the shop to find some backing, calculating whether or not there would be enough flannel and figuring how much yardage of each product my project would require.

I was engrossed in my own thoughts and was only vaguely aware of the fruitless search going on in other parts of the shop.  When I approached the cutting tables to get some help, the attendant was astonished to see that I had the bolts they had all been trying to find!  Everyone was dismayed to hear that I wanted all of the fabric, and the shop ladies who helped me could not believe I would be so selfish as to take it, once I saw Someone Else wanted some.  It was selfish.  Frankly, there was quite a bit, but I still worried there would not be enough for my wants.

The young wife who also wanted it was making a gift for her husband.  The women working in the store helped her find other things that would satisfy her need, and by the time I was ready to share they had come up with something that was “even better.”  But I was not Better.  By the time I dumped my purchases in the back seat of the car, the project had lost its appeal.  All I could think about was the unchristian way I had behaved --- and at Christmas, too!

I returned to the store at a later date to apologize.  None of the women who had been working on the fateful day were on duty, but the gal to whom I spoke had heard of the incident.  She was very uncomfortable and could hardly make eye contact.  And there was no way to make it right with the other shopper. 

We can change the future, but we can’t undo the past.

What happened to the odious fabric Reminder Pile?  Oh, it was presented as a gift, but it sat in various boxes at the front of the closet for more than three years, being trotted out occasionally for yet another attempt to be made.  When my son was offered full scholarships to a nearby state university, I imagined I could be permanently off the hook and that perhaps I could donate the mess and thereby infuse it with some virtue! 

It didn’t work out like that, though.  Because of a quietly simple spiritual prompting, my son turned down the scholarships.  He plans to apply at his Original Favorite School in a couple of years, after some missionary service.

My son’s faith to be obedient to God made finishing this project a possibility, because the project became a token of hope.  For I do have hope in God’s blessings to my son, who put aside concrete plans for his future endeavors.  I have hope that God will be merciful to me, that my heart may be purged of the selfish feelings that led me to such an unkindness in the past.  Yes, I have hope for a brighter future.

When these two partially-finished quilts moved to the next spot on the 52 Quilts docket, my sons decided they neither needed nor wanted them.  The next day, the prospect of having this project delighted their aunt, who has been visiting from far away, as it will be the perfect Christmas gift for her two sons.  And that, at last, is the Happy Ending that satisfies us all.

A Change in Focus

For several reasons, things are changing around here.  So the focus of this blog may change for awhile, too.  I started this project --- and this blog --- because I have had an abundance of fabric and many projects hanging around and I had hoped to do the clearing out that needed to be done by completing what I have had planned.

I now see that I have less time than I had imagined --- and less space than I have previously had! This means that many of the projects which I had hoped to complete this year must find new homes and be completed in wonderful ways without me.

At the midpoint of the year, I have quilted nearly twenty quilts (but if they are not bound I cannot officially count them, according to the initial rules of this blog!) and I am now working hard to shed others before they are complete.  And it's OK.  I shall continue to write about them and the progress I can make with them --- and the joy I find in sending them off to their adventures with other creative people.  Because the reasons I planned and began them in the first place were not just to prove that I am capable or creative, but to share love --- and a bit of myself --- with others.  And I hope to do that in other ways, now that my time and space are different.

A Baby Quilt for Grandma

My wonderful mother-in-law was doing me a favor --- and it was a big one!  My husband had a business trip scheduled for Vancouver Island, and the work associate who was to have attended the trade show with him could not come.  A few days prior to his departure, my husband invited me to travel with him, and his parents offered to chaperone our seven children for a few days while we were gone.

Our children are very good, but their grandparents also had additional plans of their own.  The day we expected to return, they were to leave for a week to attend the dental school graduation for one of their younger sons.  Because this brother and his wife are expecting the arrival of their fourth child, my mother-in-law was putting together a quilt to take as a gift -- and it needed to be quilted before they left.  I was delighted to offer to do it for her, though the stipple quilting is not as fancy as a professional might have done.  Still, it saved the cost of having someone do it, and it was completed before my children arrived at her house!

This quilt is made from Thirties and Forties charm squares and solid pink strips; it is backed with a darling print in green, pink and blue on a soft white field.  I was particularly pleased with the way the piecing came together -- my family could hardly find those seams on the back!  At nearly 60" square, the quilt is a bit large for a newborn; a younger child often "shares" with older siblings (whose infant blankets are still good).  The stippling worked up fast and looked nice and fairly consistent.  I was pleased with it and felt a great deal of satisfaction when it was returned to my mother-in-law the following morning!

I finally figured out how to include a picture:  I photographed the quilt with my cell phone, but it had trouble talking to the computer....

"Happy Prints" Beginnings Quilt

The summer my middle daughter turned ten, I issued a challenge:  the girls needed something to occupy their energies during the vacation months so they would have something to show for their time, and I suggested they make quilts.  For the tops, they would need to use things from our family’s stash, and they would do all of the sewing themselves.  By the end of the summer, they would have something they could use right away or put in a trousseau for their future lives.  I was willing to cut, to instruct, to pin, and to help press; but the object of the endeavor was for them to do the work of stitching.

The stipulation that no new fabrics would be purchased is reflected here.  Nearly every inch of the butter-colored Kona background yardage was used.  The quilt is not big enough to be the coverlet of a queen size bed; it could have been made larger with the inclusion of additional borders, but by the time it got to this point, she was ready for the project to just be over!

Her younger sister chose to make a quartered nine-patch.  Its six-inch squares in soft blues, greens, yellows, and lavenders made it work up fast.  It was machine quilted in a couple of hours, and it has been used regularly for years.  But the middle sister wanted hers hand quilted and preserved for later.  The problem was that she could not decide how it was to be quilted.

We put the quilt right up anyway, outline-stitching the squares that make up the border, but no decision was made by the time we finished that.  The quilt stayed on its frame for several weeks, but it was eventually taken down and stowed.  She likes to make her own decisions about things and I considered it foolish to rush her.

This spring when the quilt returned to the frame, I was armed with several stencils.  My daughter selected the most feminine --- and the most time-consuming --- of the choices, but I agree that it worked well with the quilt.  She insisted that only her and my stitches should be included, but grew discouraged about her own stitches.  This daughter has tomboy tendencies and the quilting reflects this in the long diagonal lines that connect the colored squares in the quilt’s corners.

Finished?  Yes, at last!  It was completely quilted, but choices about binding took time….

Fenced Flower Patches

A year ago, my mother let me choose quilt tops from her for each of my children.  The moment I saw this top, I thought of my youngest daughter, a red-haired sweetheart who simply loves purple!  The browns and soft turquoises are ever-so-flattering on her.  She now wants a skirt just like her quilt (and we purchased the fabric for her summertime skirt-making project when we picked the binding stripe)!

The backing is pieced, as there was not enough of any of the three pieces selected to do the whole thing; it turned out delightfully well anyway.  The three are harmonious, featuring dark brown backgrounds and flowers, stylized butterflies, or swirls in white and turquoise.

The striped binding went together so well, it appears almost seamless!  It is remarkable that the fabrics complement each other because the front, the back, and the binding came from different stores and from different years.

Because I have been working on hand-quilted projects for the last several weeks, my machine quilting was a bit rusty:  the stitches are not as even as I would like and the meander pattern could benefit from better uniformity.  But the top was quilted and ready for my young daughter to select a binding fabric in less than two hours, which time was measured while still attending to other mothering responsibilities.  

I like the look and feel of handwork better, but it takes so long that the goal of completing fifty-two would require more hours than I have!

A Mother's Day at the Quilt Show

I received a delightful Mother’s Day treat from my mom, who lives 500 miles away.  Apparently nobody in her quilt group could use a pair of tickets to a national quilt show in my area, so she sent the tickets to us! The day before Mother’s Day, my daughters and I wore out our feet at the Convention Center where the exhibit was held.

We saw beautiful quilts, all right.  We picked out our favorites and took lots of photos to share with my husband, who had the boys doing yard work at home.   We even got to experiment with a luxury longarm quilting machine! But my girls were particularly touched by the lovingly enthusiastic artist at the Sulky Thread booth who took time to explain in detail how to make a scarf with one of their handy products.  

Not surprisingly, we made a modest purchase at the booth and my oldest daughter has plans to make some beautifully unique gifts for her friends.  But the best thing was the personal connection that was made.  I am thankful for that delightful woman from some faraway place --- whose name I cannot recall --- who took time to reach out and share a part of herself with us that day.

Hers was a gift of Mothering.