a project
In January of this year I decided that I needed to make a quilt for my brother and his soon-to-be wife for their wedding gift. Originally I wasn't going to make them one because I had a new baby and a toddler and I knew how much work it was going to be and... and... and... But at the beginning of the year I started to think about it and realized that I really did want to make them one.
You might be wondering why in the world I would want to make them a quilt? I mean it's not really something I do. In fact I most definitely wouldn't call myself a quilter. But I had made both of my sisters quilts for their wedding gifts and it just started to get to me that I wasn't going to do one for my brother too. So I changed my mind and called my very dear friend, Bonnie, who just so happens to be a talented quilter and helped me with the last 2 quilts.
If you remember, my brother got married in March. Now normally 2-3 months would probably be enough time to put together a quilt but I had a whole heck of a lot of other stuff that just so happened to be going on in my life at that time. So Bonnie offered to come to my place and help me get started one weekend in February.
To say we got started would be the understatement of the century. Between Bonnie and her 4 girls, we made rapid progress on the quilt. We bought all the fabric, sewed and quilted all the squares and started sewing it together.
I never imagined I would be anywhere near completing the quilt by Darrin and Kelsey's wedding but after that weekend, I knew it would be possible. So I did a lot of sewing and clipping over that next month and it started to come together.
Kelsey's favorite color is red and their wedding colors were black and red so I wanted to do a red, black and white quilt for them. I love the look of rag quilts and after talking with Bonnie, I realized it would be a good one to make in a short period of time. It's really hard to tell in the photos but it has nice frayed seams.
I was almost finished the quilt by their wedding day but since I was feeling a bit selfish, I wanted to save it to give to them in person when they returned from their honeymoon (which also happened to buy me an extra 2 weeks to finish it up).
The last bit turned out to be quite a bit of work. Jonathan was in his accident shortly after their wedding, just before they returned from their honeymoon. When they did return, my mom and dad happened to be visiting us so we invited them over for brunch one Sunday morning. So the night before, I decided I was going to finish the quilt. I sewed and sewed and clipped and clipped. The next morning I found the laundromat in town, took the quilt to be washed and rushed home without drying it, thinking I didn't have time. I threw the quilt into our dryer at home to try and fray up the seams while we ate brunch upstairs. Then I cleaned it up, put it in a gift bag and gave it to them.
I had to almost beg my brother to hold it up for me so that I could get a photo of it all complete.
It is intended to be a quilt they use on their couch but since my brother is over 6' tall, I wanted it to be long enough for him to cover up with. So the quilt ended up being a lot bigger than I originally thought it would be. It covers our queen size bed. I hope it's not too big for them.
The photos just don't do it justice, in my opinion. It looks so much better in real life.
Never in a million years could I ever have done this without Bonnie (and her girls). I am forever grateful for all their help. Thank you, thank you, thank you, my friends.
And now that all my siblings are married, I was looking forward to not making a quilt for a very long time. The only problem is that I decided I liked this rag quilt so much that I want to make one for myself now too.
Thank goodness for such wonderful, giving friends like Bonnie. Do you think I could convince her to help me yet again?!