Quilting

On Monday, November 10th my parents will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary! And being the sentimental schlub I am, I thought this was an event that needed to be commemorated in some way. I've been pondering this for over a year and decided that I would make them a memory quilt that in some small way gave a snapshot of those 30 years. Of course, I didn't start the quilt until I had only 5 days to do it. :)

I am a sometime quilter. I learned a little about quilting from my psycho roommate in college. It started out easy enough. Lap-sized quilts of equal size squares. Pretty straight forward and something to cut my teeth on. Then I got rather...overzealous. My Mom had been a runner earlier in my life and had saved many of her race t-shirts for a quilt she would make or have made "someday." I decided I could handle this challenge. And, I was wrong. Yes, I made the quilt. Yes, she loved it as only a mother can. And yes, it still hangs in her house today. But it hangs there sadly, a constant reminder of my shame, as it hangs kiddie wompus on the wall. Ugh. She won't let me fix it.

So in honor of the anniversary, I was going to do a memory quilt which is defined by having pictures. And a friend of mine shared with me a design for a quilt. And this wasn't squares. This was triangles and "stars" and all kinds of challenging stuff. And to add more complexity, I had taken her stained wedding dress she was about to throw out 18 months ago with plans to incorporate the fabric into the quilt. And I did. And it turned out pretty damn well. Now, I look at that quilt and see all of my mistakes but Adam assures me that no one else sees them. She loved it. My Dad loved it. And it will soon grace the wall in their bedroom. And I won't be so embarrassed.