Also, at that time Charlie had moved back to Massachusetts to do an internship and then once the summer was over he was going back to school to finish up his under-grad degree. This meant that we were "apart" for 6 months (I say "apart" because we still saw each other on some weekends and also at the gazillion weddings we went to.) Any-who, while thinking of something to do with my spare time I remembered what my Mum had said and decided that it was the perfect time to show Charlie how much I loved him and make him a quilt.
I ended up letting him in on the secret and even letting him pick out the pattern. Which is how we ended up with a quilt with houses and trees on it. Charlie is a woodsman by nature and I should have known he would pick the one pattern in the store with trees. In order to make the quilt more sentimental, because lets face it, sentimental is my middle name, I embroidered addresses on a few of the houses to represent the all of the places we had lived, dorm room numbers, apartment numbers and our first apartment together. I also made a few of the tree trunks look like someone had carved into them and added the date we started dating and my favorite part "CT+ LC".
I love the hand stitching. A true labor of love. I have no idea how long I spent hand quilting but I can tell you that my Grammy and I watched an awful lot of Project Runway and 17 Kids and Counting while I stitched away. (This was two years ago so there were only 17 kids, not whatever number they are at now...21 maybe?)My other favorite part is this bear. Charlie and I went to The University of Maine and the mascot was a black bear so I wanted to have a bear on the quilt. I joked with him once the quilt was done that making the bear square took me longer than the rest of the quilt. Even though it took me forever to make and I can remember ripping out stitches left and right, and shelling out expletives left and right, I love it. It reminds me of who we were and where we met.
Oh, I almost forgot my other most favorite part of the quilt. I stitched this into the top so Charlie could see it every night when he went to bed:
I asked him if he liked looking at it when he used to use the quilt and his response was; "No it was always dark when I went to bed so I never saw it." Oy! My talents are wasted.I realized the other day that since we have moved and also have gotten engaged there are more important dates and addresses to add to Charlie's quilt. Hopefully I can finish that up tonight. Embroidering a quilt that is already put together without the stitches showing on the back is a huge pain.
Off to stitch. Too bad I can't watch trashy TV with my Grammy as I work.
Lauren
Lauren this is soooo cute! I forgot what it looked like. I asked Garrett if he wanted me to make him a quilt and he said no. His reason is becasue he likes to steal mine and cuddle with them. I love the goodnight on it. I bought Garrett an argyle sweater one year for christmas and i sewed a heart on the sleve, so he would wear my heart on his sleve, but he didn't notice it until i pointed it out to him!
ReplyDeleteTo all you folks out there who follow Lauren's blog, I am her mother. If you haven't been following this since the beginning, go back to her first post about acquiring her 1930's sewing machine and you will get a clearer picture of my history.
ReplyDeleteI've not said much in the past but now I shall speak.
It is one of the greatest pleasures of my life to read these posts and see what a wonderful young woman my daughter has become, to me a dream come true and worth every second of hardship, argument(s), rage, and discontent that we have afflicted upon one another at some time along this journey.
My Grandmother (the one who gave Lauren her sewing machine) was the most talented craftsperson I ever met and a great role model for me. My grandparents owned a five and dime store, started in the 1930's, in the midst of The Great Depression, until they retired in the early 1970's. One of the many things they sold was fabric. That sewing machine, you know which one I mean, was used to alter many a dress to make my Grandmother's customers happy and confident about what they were wearing.
During my junior high and high school years I gained a real interest in sewing and was extremely pleased with the deal my Grandmother offered me. Her offer was as follows.. if you want to make your own clothes the fabric is free, if you don't want to make your own clothes you will have to buy them (cut rate of course). What a motivator plus, if I screwed something up really badly, as I did back then, I could just rip the object in half and forget about it! (I really only did that once and I never told my Grammie).
Over the course of time I have made many accomplishments with the/a sewing machine...a three piece suit for Lauren's father, many, many clothes for myself and my children, excellent Halloween costumes, a wedding gown for a friend, a wedding gown for myself, a beautiful dress for Lauren as maid of honor, a prom dress for Lauren like no other and now I am about to make a wedding gown for my lovely daughter.
I feel so honored to have been asked to make this dress. It will be beautiful, she will be beautiful, my Grandmother will be smiling down from Heaven and I'll be lying on the ground crying my eyes out but, that's another story so maybe I should start my own blog.
I love you Lauren.