Big's Quilt - Finished and Well-Loved

Big's Quilt

60'' by 54''

With very little fanfare in the house  - more like a giant smile and a tiny squeal - I finished the quilt for my Evil Genius. It came out of the washing machine, all toasty, and was immediately put to use for cuddles, then fort building, then as a veil, then baby wrapping, then sleep. Well loved right from the start.

It's such a crazy mishmash of fabrics, all picked by her. She laid it out, then helped me sew it together by sitting on my lap and guiding pieces through the machine. Well, some pieces. Then she got bored and went back to watching Coraline. I was allowed to baste it without her, late at night, so her baby brother wouldn't get in the way. Then she picked thread for quilting - 6 different ones. No amount of convincing would lessen that amount so I accepted the challenge. Including that the front and back be different! (Oh tension woes! Don't look closely at the quilting.) She even drew me a sketch of the squiggly line she wanted for the quilting. That girl knows how to draw a meander. Finally, she picked her binding fabrics, a blend of purple with a bit of pink, of course. And she even sat with me for quite a bit as I hand stitched the binding down, pulling the needle.

Even I thought I was crazy when we started this project. Here is what I learned:

 - Let it evolve. If you get stuck on things having to get done only you will get frustrated. She could focus on the task, but making a quilt is a big project to a kid so it needs to happen at their pace.

 - Move fast. It was a lot of stop/go. When it was my turn to finish a task she was on me to get it done and get it done now.

 - Be okay if she loses interest. It sat for over a month on my design wall and I was a little bit sad that she'd lost interest. But when she came back to it her excitement had grown.

 - Let it go. Like most of us, the excitement was in the fabric selection and layout. I couldn't take that away from her so I let go of my conventions and perceptions. Would I have chosen that red fabric? Nope, but she loves them.

 - Limit the selection for backing fabric. I gave her stack of fabric I have in big yardage and told her to pick just one. Phew.

 - Do not use 6 different threads from 3 different manufacturers for the quilting. Just don't do it.

 - Be prepared for a blah reaction. Perhaps I'd built up her excitement for the quilt in my head, but a smile and just a tiny squeal were not what I expected when I handed her a warm quilt. But since I finished it a few weeks ago I see that it gets dragged around like her blankies, she wants it at night, and she plays with it. The quilt is not getting ignored and she loves to show it off. So yeah, I'd say she is indeed excited.

 - When you let her direct the photo shoot take, then delete, the photos where she drapes herself over the quilt in a way that no almost 5 year old should be seen. Don't tell her.

 - Smile a lot when you notice her outfits match her quilt.

Letting Her Play... Or How I'm Learning to Let Go of my Fabric

It was like a floodgate. So much just pushing on the doors, screaming to bust through and wreak havoc on anything in its path. I let her in, I really let her in the sewing room and now I can't keep her out. No longer content to arrange and make a mess of my jars of scraps she is now turning to me stash. She pulls out her favourite colours, determines just the right combination, then grabs my embroidery scissors, and hacks away. She's discovered fabric glue and fabric markers. With no input from me, and little regard for my fabric she is churning out butterflies and more.

It was one thing to let her pick and play when making her quilt. I still had some margin of control over that. Now? All I can manage to keep her from doing is hacking through some favourite fabrics with random cuts down the middle. But it rips at my quilter's gut and every now and then my heart, the heart that is tied to obsessions with fabric gets broken. She listens to me when I vehemently insist that she leave THAT fabric alone, then turns around and insists herself that she knows what she is doing and won't wreck my fabric because she is making something more beautiful.

She does this while I sew, while I write, while I cut fabric for her sister's quilt, while I play around on the internet. She won't touch my scraps, preferring to attack the bins of fabric in my stash. Did I mention the heart palpitations? Then I remember what Amanda said, It's All Just Fabric.

So we've had repeated discussions about cutting from the corner, not the middle, and how Mama gets final say on whether she can use that particular fabric. And when she wanted a big piece on which to attach a swarm on butterflies I let go and said that it would make a perfect garden.

Friday Favourite - The Family

Seems rather silly, after the week the world is having, to post something about a favourite tool or gadget or pretty thing. I know we all need those things and they are a welcome distraction.

I also know that many of us create in times of stress and distress. We take comfort in our pretty things in progress and made. They give us hugs right back when we embrace their beauty, their imperfections. They are the shoulder when no other shoulder is available for the cry. They are the moments in time where peace - even when there was a struggle to make it - is readily available.

After last week and this one, both ups and downs I am sharing my ultimate  favourite thing today. My family. These 4 people make me smile more than anyone else can, while also infuriating me more than anyone else can. And I wouldn't trade them for the world. So, I'm holding them close.

We are likely to be found under a quilt. Send popcorn and scotch.

Friday Favourite: Dido's Salsa

My Dad was world famous for his salsa. Well, locally famous. As in, all of our family and friends would beg for jars of his usually just the right amount of spicy and a bit smoky salsa. In a family such as ours it is no surprise that the recipe for pyrohy dough is a treasured possession. We'd be bad Ukrainians without it. But the salsa is what we all were afraid would get lost when he died.

As the end was becoming abundantly clear in my father's lung cancer we all gathered at my parent's house. I sat and spoke to my Dad about his salsa. We started with the first recipe, the first batch he ever made. He told me where he got his tomatoes and peppers. I photographed each ingredient as it was chopped so we would always know just how fine or chunky it should be. I photographed my Dad as he  stirred, sipped, and stammered through making salsa.

A week later he was admitted to the hospital and 6 weeks later he died.

Two weeks ago my Mom and I gathered to make a batch of salsa, only the second time we've done it since his death. Somehow it's fallen to me to be the guardian of the recipe. I don't mind at all. We do a good job with it, but of course it isn't the same. It lacks the smokiness - maybe that infiltrated from him and his nasty smoking habit. And I chopped things a bit finer this time because I wasn't paying as much attention. I could hear his criticism in my head as I stirred the peppers into the tomatoes. But we came out with jars and jars of salsa that we still call Dido's Salsa. I still top my scrambled eggs with it, my daughter fills her tortilla with it, it sits beside a plate of nachos when friends come over and they ask where we got it. It will always be Dido's Salsa, even when I chop the onions too fine.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of his death. The 4 am phone call from my brother. The sobs of my Mom as I woke her, the stupid red car stuck in a giant puddle on the way to the hospital, making tea while I called the funeral home, telling the girls in the midst of a date, the washing machine repairman who came and had no clue what had happened. It's all so vivid. Perhaps even more so this year as last year I was focused on the new baby.

My Dad was a man with many faults and our relationship was far, far, from perfect or even good. But he had a story and a heart in there somewhere. And damn, he made fine salsa.