Judah's Quilt

Faith had this quilt mostly completed long before Christmas and it looks wonderful. The reason it hadn't been officially displayed yet is because we weren't sure whether or not we ought to make corrections to it that would make it "just right". After storing it away for almost a month, we recuperated enough to see it with new eyes and realize that it was just right as it is. Then Faith had to finish it in a flurry so we could wrap it and put it under the tree for Judah. He is in love with it. Judah has been naming the vehicles on it after characters from the Cars movie. We tried not to get commercial, but somehow we knew he would do that, even though the vehicles have their own unique cartoon-like shape that comes from my own signature style.

This quilt came about in a rather odd manner. Faith had just begun Aslynn's quilt, which is actually a quilted wall hanging modified into blanket form. She searched quilt shops and online stores, even through other people's examples that they had posted on quilting websites and blogs, but nothing seemed to really click. There were a few ideas that she got from some pictures, but nothing really stood out as a whole. That's when we decided to do things "our way"...

We didn't want it all to be appliqued, but the piecing couldn't be too complex either. We had to figure out the sizes of everything, seam allowances for each piece, colours that worked well together for the purposes of the pictures and representation and overall appearance of everything. The diagram we made on graph paper then had to be enlarged and drawn out as patterns for a number of pieces, sometimes two or three times. Any error we made became personal. "Painstaking" is the only word I could use to adequately describe the process.  In the end, we were creatively and emotionally spent. When something didn't work, we had no-one else to blame but ourselves. And the sewing machine. And maybe the fabric glue that didn't stick. And...

Today I'd say it is nothing less than a masterpiece. We can only get better, right? It's like cake decorating - you get the right tools, the right materials, and the right skills through trial and error, the advice of experienced artists, and a few great ideas. Speaking of which, we are trying to get Judah to stop thinking about Cars for his birthday (which he had last year) and consider maybe having a train set for his birthday cake. He loves playing with toy trains. We have this great little set from Ikea that he keeps building and rebuilding and asks Daddy how to build over and over and over. If we could find all the pieces it would be that much better!

- Mark