And Now For the Fun Part

 

And now for the fun part. That is what I kept saying, as my son looked over my shoulder day after day as I diligently worked on Ken’s Christmas present. My son is very much the creative type ( just like his mama), and I am enjoying watching his creativity bloom. He definitely has an eye for colors, style, and design. I imagine, if he had the inclination and with his amazing computer skills, he would make an awesome graphic designer or even a game designer.

There are many, many steps in the quilt-making process, especially when one is designing as she goes, as with a free-form T-shirt quilt. For one, I greatly underestimated how many T-shirts I would need. Even though Ken has a huge collection of shirts, he was rather stingy in which he was willing to sacrifice. I tried my best to make them stretch (no pun intended), but I finally had to go back to him and ask for more T-shirts. Since he could now see the beautiful thing I was creating for him, he was slightly more generous. He even gave me the shirt of his back. Of course, I had to wash it before cutting it up, though.

I also got him to give up a pair of Valentine’s boxers. No comment . . .

I had plenty of creative help, though some “helpers” were more insistent about getting their own way than others.

But where I really needed the help was with hand-washing the batting.

I chose an all-natural 100% cotton batting for this project, and if I did not pre-wash, I would have lost 3% in size with the first washing-that’s almost 3 inches in length alone. It is worth it, though, being all-natural and made in the USA.

I discovered something while working on this quilt. My work table is in front of the armoire, which my friend has yet to take even though she has paid for it. The colors in the quilt look great up against the dark cherry of my old bedroom set. Again, I regret selling it, but it had to be done.

The armoire will not fit in the RV, no matter how hard I try, and I would hate for it to be damaged from sitting in storage for years, not to mention the storage costs to keep a bedroom set so large. Ken will have enough stuff he is unwilling to part with that we will have to pay for, again and again, in storage fees.

Here, my guys are modeling the front side, when it is almost completed. It just needed the border, and then I could slap it all together. That’s Suzie in the bottom, right corner.

It took a lot of finessing, and more safety pins than one could imagine, to get the two sides and the batting to cooperate, but I finally got this quilt finished, and just in the nick of time, with Christmas right around the corner. I bet it will look absolutely beautiful in the Raven—if ever we get her back from the shop.

I just had to show off the boxers. They made it onto the quilt, whole and intact.