My Christmas Project

I always have a hard time knowing what to buy my parents for Christmas, and on Nov. 22 the bright idea came to me to make them a quilt. My friend Lori had made a beautiful quilt for her niece, so I asked her if she'd take on the task of showing me how to make one in less than a month. She was crazy enough to accept (which I love) and off we went. I even decided to make it extra special and put pictures on it. One side had pics of my family now with the bro-in-laws and nieces and nephews and the other side had my parents wedding pic in the middle and pics of my siblings and I as little kids, as well as a pic of each of my parents with their siblings. Quite the task, you may think ... and it was. First to pick out the fabric.

Then I had a lot of cutting to do. 420 squares! Phewf! Then I sewed an X through all the squares and had to piece together the puzzle. That was actually quite fun. Lori and I looked over it and over it and made sure there were no two of the same fabric beside each other and no two colors that were similar touching one another. Let me tell you ... two sets of eyes are better than one.

I had a few snags figuring out how to get the pictures printed onto the right fabric and how to treat them so they didn't wash away. I was so worried that I'd take it out of the wash and there would be blank squares. I told Lori that if that happened, I'd be getting out a sharpie pen and drawing in stick figures of my family, but luckily that didn't happen. Then came the long hours of sewing together each square.

To make a rag quilt, you have to snip each hem/border of each square. That took a looooooong time as well. Then I sewed on the border, threw it in the washing machine and VOILA, the quilt came out ragged and was finished at 2:00 pm on Thursday, Dec. 21 (did I mention that I flew out on Friday, Dec. 22).

The quilt was a big hit with my parents. My Mom kept saying that she was, "Blown away!" My sister didn't think that I made it, but when I told her that I did, her jaw dropped to the floor and she was speachless. It was really quite funny. I have it on video. Anyways, thank you, Lori for all your help (and thanks to Marni for lending me her sewing machine). It was a fun project to do and I look forward to doing more (yes, Lori does teach "classes" on how to do it, so if you're interested, let me know).

Even though it took me 50 hours, my Mom and Dad are totally worth it. I love you very much and hope you have many more years to enjoy the quilt (but remember that it gets bequeathed to me first). :)