Striping Dad's Shirts

I've spent the last several nights working at my dining room table with Torchwood reruns going on Netflix while I start the process of turning all of Dad's shirts into 5" strips to turn into memory/comfort quilts for my family. I think I'm finally getting a routine down. Some of the shirts are so worn I'm having to starch them in order to give them enough body to cut straight. The pile of strips is growing and I'm also making a separate pile of sleeves and shirt pockets to incorporate into unique blocks down the road.I only have 4 pairs of Dad's jeans, so my daughters and son are collecting their used jeans to add to the stash to provide enough family-used denim for the blocks. Eventually everything will be brought down to one huge charm pack of 5" squares.

During the day I keep thinking I'll get more done, but then I get totally distracted...

You see, I spend my days taking care of Jacob, my 7-month-old grandson. He's just started crawling and loves to take the DVDs out of the rack and then chew on them. You'll probably see more of this little monkey since he seems to get in most of my pictures.


While cruising through my FB newsfeed today, I spotted the Quilting Gallery's "Quilter's Show & Tell" event. This week's theme is to post a picture of your favorite quilt of 2012, even if it's not finished. I did finish my favorite in 2012 and, in fact, Enlightened Souls is the favorite quilt I've made so far! I really got into the FMQ and outlined every feather on the cranes in Hemingworth 40wt Old Gold, as well as doing lots of what I think of as artsy FMQ with pebbling, pine needles & knotty branches, and playing with several stencils in the various borders.

I collected the blocks on two subsequent Quilter's Quest shop hops through the San Francisco Bay Area--the first year was the kimono blocks and the next was the lantern blocks. Each shop had made such marvelous quilts each year that provided lots of inspiration. However, they sat in my stash for about 3 years before I decided what to do with them. At Christmas I had found the crane fabric to use in a pillowcase for one of my great nephews who loves Asian stuff. I bought more and started playing on my living room floor (my design wall at that time) with the blocks. The Kimono blocks were my first venture into paper piecing with the collars and sleeves. It was a challenge, but one that I managed to figure out on my own.

A close friend of mine has a life coaching/counseling practice called Youniversoul. The more I worked on this quilt, the more I knew it would someday be Adele's. Once I knew whose it was, then I got more excited about working on it and before I made my move from California back to Kansas in early 2012, I was able to complete it and present it to her at our last visit at her office in Berkeley. She was so overwhelmed by it that she just wrapped herself up in it and cried. Then we put it on the massage table, which I had measured on a previous visit, and as I had hoped it was a perfect fit.

This summer Adele had a seminar in Wichita, KS, and added a day to her trip to come visit me in my new home. She brought the quilt back to me so I can show it in a couple of local quilt shows and enter it in this year's Lyon County Fair this coming June. After it has made the rounds, it will be returned to her. I'm so grateful to Adele for sharing this beautiful quilt with me again so it can be shown and shared with my quilting friends.

I'm off to visit my son for a couple of days, so the UFOs and NewFOs will have to wait for me to return.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz