Billy's Memory Quilt ~~ finished!

Memory quilts seem to be the most requested commissions I get. I'm a little tired of them, but this particular quilt is really special because I made a memory quilt for this mom in 2015. That one was for her oldest;  this one is for the middle child. She brought it to me in the fall, but allowed me to push it back to get other quilts done.  

This little family has seen a few changes: mom got remarried and had a baby. That older brother started college. This one is graduating in May. And somewhere between this graduate and the baby, there's another boy. So mom was not shy about asking me to keep costs down. Somehow, I managed to keep the price down enough that it almost matches the first memory quilt I made for her back in 2014-15. 

That's me playing quilt model in the whole quilt photos. Richard's back and neck hurt too much to hold his arms overhead, so I climbed on a patio chair and did the honors. Hmm, no wonder everyone tries to hide when I come around with a quilt and my phone--quilts are heavy! 

One of my favorite parts of this quilt are the tee-shirts Billy painted. The one above is especially cute. The bottom of the shirt and both sleeves had been cut into small strips and embellished with beads. (Could there have been a girl in the vicinity?) I didn't want to lose that personal touch, so I cut off the fringes and sewed them into the quilt along the top of the shirt. They are still free to move around and really give the quilt some character.

 Another shirt must have been painted at VBS or church camp. There are lots of Christian symbols on both sides of the shirt, so I cut the front and back and stitched them together to make one panel. Then I custom quilted around the fabric paint to help make the letters and symbols stand out. 

Because mom had asked that I keep costs down as much as possible, I decided to stipple most of the quilt but just couldn't help myself on some of the shirts. This sports shirt is one example: I stitched around each of the players so that the characters stand out against the white background and to avoid cutting bodies with stitching lines. This one was great fun--I guess the only thing I didn't stitch is the background!  

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	Billy's Tee-shirt Memory Quilt
	Size:	60 x 80
	Fabrics:	Tee-shirts from client
	Backing:	muslin (from stash)
	Binding:	black Kona
	Pattern:	puzzle design
	Quilting:	stippling
	Completed:	March 2018

Another way that I saved on costs for mom was to put a few of the shirts on the back. The quilt is not so wide, but it's still ample enough to cover a pretty good size guy.  What do you think about my cost-saving measures? Do you have a few tricks to lower the costs for clients? I'd love to see a few that I can share with my customers. (And still make a few dollars.) 

I am committed to one more of these, then I think I'll take a break and play with my own projects. We'll see how that goes! Have a great week of quilting everyone!

Link Ups to Love!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)
Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!) 

Something for Jake

Back in November I wrote about a family in our little town who lost their son, Jake, when his friend accidentally shot Jake with an assault rifle. Steve and Mike (Richard's brother and Jake's dad, respectively) have been best friends since they were young men. Steve and his wife, Shannon, were Jake's godfather and godmother, babysat him when his parents worked, and hired him to work in their lawn business. They are taking his death very hard. 

Just a few weeks ago, they celebrated what would have been Jake's 21st birthday. Steve and Shannon wanted to do something symbolic for the occasion and asked me to make a small quilt with his name on it. Jake was an avid hunter, so they wanted a camouflage background with his name in purple. Both his mom and his godmother love purple. 

I knew I couldn't get the quilt finished in time but Steve and Shannon preferred that I make it even if it would be late. I finished turned it over to Steve this afternoon. Gratefully, he seemed very satisfied. 

I supposed I should call it a bed runner since it's too small to be even a lap quilt. It's meant to lay on his bed as a reminder of Steve and Shannon's love for Jake. I can only hope it will serve them well. 

Rather than just stipple or use some edge-to-edge quilting, I decided to follow the tree and limb edges. It was relatively easy, except in keeping track of where I was in the woods. Really, the camo effect is so good that even though I'd step back and look at the design repeat, I got lost a couple of times. I've decided that's the way I added character to the piece. 

Because the purple letters seemed a bit out of place against the grays, greens, browns and black of the camouflage, I decided to add a small piping at the binding. I like this much more than the original idea of using just the camo. 

Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!) 

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Quilts for Guys, Men, and Boys

Happy Father's Day! Below are the fathers who have a great deal of influence in my life. All of the boys and their families were here today, making messes, huge ruckuses, and enormous fun.

Riley, my dad who died in 2012
This is from his 70th birthday party; he died at 81.

Richard, my husband of 38 years 
He was in his 30's in this picture,
 still as good looking at 57.

Our rough looking bunch of boys--
don't you know they're all now clean shaven!
Will (oldest), Rory (youngest) and Adam (middle)

There are many more ideas for guy-themed quilts on my "heart, quilts" board. I hope you had a wonderful day with your children and grandchildren. 

The Garden Wars: A Ship Sinks

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Mayday! Mayday! THE ANTS ARE COMING! THE ANTS ARE COMING!

Ahh, well, there's only one way to take out the enemy...with full gear and enough ammo. Really it's the only way. Men, you know.

So we've had a great deal of rain. Flood stage and higher. People have lost homes. Rivers overrun their banks kind of rain. Darn sky!

With rain come the ants. Fire ants. Sugar ants. Red ants. Flying ants. Ants with no name. They are allowed on my kitchen cabinet. Actually, that's a problem but it's my problem. The garden, however, is scared ground. Remember the Garden War has begun. Ants may cause a gardener to lose to another gardener. So we can't have ants in the garden. Or aphids. Or chickens. Or anything that may eat a leaf. Leaves are good. Ants are bad. Simple. 

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But ants invade, although this wasn't really a tactical move, they were flooded out. So in their defense, it really was the sky's fault. Darn sky! But they should have moved to the pasture. Or my kitchen cabinet. Somewhere safe. Instead, they moved two feet from scared ground. They had to go. 

I am at fault since I warned a gardener to be careful and not stand in the anthill while we were on the daily admiration walk to admire the plants, the leaves, the heights, the vegetables. Then admire the garden in general. Kneel and say a pray for good weather, good harvest, and a kicka-- win. Walk to the next garden and repeat. There are several boxes, remember? It takes a while. 

This particular day, however, I noticed The Anthill. Easy fix. Pour an oil-based liquid on the hill and strike a match. It's what country boys do, you understand. Oil-based liquids are easily accessible, make whooshing sounds, and cause havoc. All three of my boys are reliable pyromaniacs. I, myself, can start a campfire with one match and the items I gather in the woods. It's written in the official "True Southern Rite of Passage Handbook" (section 5, article iii, line 6) True Southerners must be "capable of building a safe fire without harm to human, animal, live vegetation, or self using only natural materials and no more than three matches." It goes on to say blah, blah, blah, blah...

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Adam met that standard at about the age of two, maybe three. He was toddling around gathering wood, so he couldn't have been very old. Today, he can start a safe fire with a wet brick. So he started a fire. It's an interesting way to de-ant a garden. 

That the ants weren't actually in the garden was just a small sticking point. They were around the tall creosote pole that held the electrical wires to Adam's shed. The wires weren't connected to the shed. They were just holding the pole up. Maybe one day they'll carry electricity all the way from the transformer to the shed. Maybe not. 

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But the electrical pole was not the problem, the ants were the problem. So Adam poured paint thinner around the pole, not on the pole, it was to be a safe fire, and struck the lighter. It was a little disappointing that the paint thinner didn't whoosh, but it did upset the ants. In fact, it was upsetting enough that the boy poured on more paint thinner. 

Hmm, there wasn't enough oil-based liquid, so he got out a small can of some other Napalm-like liquid and poured. The fire got hotter. Ahh, now the ants were climbing out of the depths of the nest. They were toast and soon the fire died down to barely a smolder. Not even smoke. Everyone safe. See, a safe fire. That was Saturday.




On Sunday it was easy to explain to the electrical company why the electrical pole was lying on the ground. The wires were faulty, you see. They got scared of the little bitty (safe) fire and let go of the pole and, unable to support itself, the pole crashed to the ground. 

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Here's your chemistry lesson: paint thinner--flammable; burns like a chemical grenade capable of seeping into small cracks. Creosote--enzymatic chemical; can burn without oxygen. In fact, it can create a fire out of itself. And that, my dear readers, is what happened.  A week later and there's still a smolder of laughter.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: B O W T I E S

It's February and Valentine's Day. There are lots of reasons to dress up coming in the next few months: weddings, proms, graduations, and so on. Guys claim they don't like dressing to impress but, in my experience and I did raise three, they generally like the way they look once it's all done. After all, they can be pretty impressive.

"Bow tie quilts?" you ask. Well, sure!

And finally, two bow tie quilts I've made.  The first is Black Tie Affair, made in 2011 and one of the first quilts quilted on the long-arm, the second is 50th Anniversary Quilt, which I made for my parents which was in 2007.   

a bow tie quilt I made in 2011 and blogged about here

a bow tie quilt I made in for my parents'
50th anniversary and blogged about here

Happy Quilting,