New Project

I’ve been planning a quilt for little Ivan for some time and have finally been able to get a start on it. I needed some materials that I didn’t have as well as some instruction. Tisra loaned me a book and that took care of instruction and Wal-mart sold me some fabric, embroidery thread, embroidery needles and tracing pencils…that took care of materials.

Here’s the intended look of the quilt:

I want to get this together so it can be hand quilted in time for his arrival. The sewing will not require much at all but I wanted to embroider a design on it and really personalize it for him. I chose colors that match what I painted in the boys room and then decided on airplanes for my little theme to go with the travel motif I’ve begun in there.

Last night I started on the embroidery and it is going so much faster than I’d hoped. I’m really glad because I am already nearly halfway done with it and then all I have to do is sew the pieces together and get it set up in the quilt frame.

I now have all the green planes embroidered and I’ve started on the first of the three blue ones. I’m very happy with how well it looks and feel like I could really enjoy embroidery. I have always wanted to learn but never have I taken the time. It’s another grandmother hobby. My dad’s mom is a quilter and my mom’s was always working on an embroidery project. I can almost guarantee that their work was combined somewhere in history with Grandma Katie embroidering blocks in a quilt that Reubmummy helped quilt. Wouldn’t it be awesome to get my hands on something like that. I’m sure if it exists it is long gone to a relief sale or some other such charity where it was placed in the hand of someone who appreciated it for it’s quality but will never know it’s value to me.

Tisra and I were talking the other night about the hobbies we have tried and how we simply are drawn to the things our grandmothers did. She has tried quilting and I have tried knitting. Though we didn’t dislike them…we just don’t fit those tasks as well as the things our grandmothers did. Something sparks in me when I am quilting and I’m sure that she feels the same way about knitting, she does wonderful work and is really enjoying it, while I am coming into my own as a quilter. Fun stuff in my mind.

Kris comes home tomorrow and as I was telling Owen this news tonight before bed he got excited and said…”let’s go look!” as if we might find daddy downstairs if we just went down there and looked for him. I explained that we would have to go to the airport and get him and he said, “Let’s go!” to which I had to explain all that would take place before we could do that. Tomorrow is still a bit of a foreign concept to his mind but bedtime, breakfast, Joey, lunch, nap time and then going to get daddy made some sense. Oh that we could hurry the hours.