Quilthammer

Middle Child and I bonded today. I got home late from work last night to a wonderful message on my answering machine, my sisters Wedding Quilt was done! Now I’d designed it and pieced it… after the Dad found the absolute perfect fabric that defined the whole project. For a tough military guy he has a great eye. And the self-confidence to share it with me. Favorite moments in my life are heavy discussions over fabric choices, in public, with the Dad. It’s kind of an anchor for what is truly our marriage.

Miss Judy quilted it for me. Baby quilts I can piece and hand-tie, even some minor machine quilting but a big ol’ full-queen-king size quilt? I need help. Miss Judy’s help came in the form of “King Tut” thread. Considering the absolute perfect fabric was little Egyptian guys dancing around the border, “King Tut” thread was perfect!.

Brother-in-Law (aka BIL) had proposed to Sister last Christmas during a surprise cruise down the river Nile. He shared his iPod with her and dancing to some Bob Marley he asked her to be his wife. One of the most romantic proposals I know and one that needs to be retold and shared, just to keep that kind of love in the air. I hope my quilt leads to the retelling of that story often, and that it sparks others to love in such a beautiful way. Thoughts of their quilt immediately filled my head hearing the news. The Dad knew that without asking me and happily chauffeured me to JoAnn’s fabric shop way out in Fayetteville. He found the perfect fabrics immediately. I’ve never picked the pieces together so quickly. It really is a joy that he shares my hobby and holds my hand through some of the tough decisions and, yuck, math that goes with quilting.

I had the top cut & roughly pieced easily and quickly. Deciding where each block went & flowed best was a lot harder, poor Dad spent some rough evenings coming in off the field deadbeat only to find his bed covered in quilt blocks and me, yammering away “like this?” , “Or maybe like this?” , “What do you think?” Poor guy was game anyway and helped me figure it all out. The top turned out beautifully. And now I’ve got it back from the master quilter Miss Judy and it is GORGEOUS! The King Tut thread flows through the quilt just like a Bob Marley song, in the gold, greens and reds of reggae. She even showed it off to the quilting guild ladies and they ooohed & aaaawed over my creation. I’m on cloud nine and soooo wish I could see Sister and BILs faces.

Miss Judy really was impressed with my “modern” style and she had a book or two of new techniques she thought I might like to explore. The first book was very cool, but a little over my head. The second book was completely my style. A traditional pattern with a twist. Exactly what I like to do. I raced home with the book and my excitement was contagious for middle child. He wanted to help. Fantastic timing! Right at that second I had two quilts I wanted to start, one easy but needed color and he has his father’s eye for color, and one difficult that I would tackle. We worked side by side for several hours, washing, ironing, cutting, hemming & hawwwing a little here and there. He learned quite a bit about selvage edges, fabric biases, rotary cutters and using a sewing machine. In the end he had enough strips for several nine patches and he was quite please with where it was going. I don’t know if I was more pleased at how long he’d hung in there, or the fact that being a military family we can still be a quilting family too. It’s just cool to me.

I continued on with my twisted new project, realizing I was in deep doodoo with the amount of math involved. Eldest sprang to my rescue sprouting out numbers and angles left & right. I said “Listen to me, I just need to know how long to cut each side of the triangle” and he insisted that I listen to his explanation of how he got to those numbers (He had a point, after round one of triangles there would be 6 more rounds of triangles in proportionately bigger sizes). But I don’t do math well and all I really wanted was the math done & the size of the triangles given to me. I can cut them out just fine, once I know what size they are. The Dad understands my need of just the answer. And I thank the Dad for having set to example that quilting with me is good. I’m going to choose to believe that is is good family bonding and leave it at that. I am thankful my boys help me sort out my quilting dilemma’s... now if only the days were longer and I could quilt some more without feeling like I'm falling over... all would be perfect.