A LABOR of Love....

Last January we had the threat of severe winter weather.. now let me remind you that I live in the deep deep South.. so snow flurries are severe winter weather to us!  Mention snow or ice and run home and batten down the hatches.. much like we do for hurricanes. I also live in a college town, so when this warning was released, the college sent kids home... that could go home. My son's girlfriend came to our house.. and she brought her roomie, Morgan, with her.  We all spent the next 24 or so hours curled up under quilts.. playing games.. eating fun food.. watching movies.. being silly. It was a lot of fun!

Morgan was intrigued by our quilting and some time later mentioned that she had a quilt top her grandmother had made for her back in the 90s.  But that was all she had.. the top. Could we finish it? Sure. A bit later the top arrived. I looked at the size of it, smiled at my wonderful husband (a.k.a. the mad quilter) and said "It's all yours!"  

He removed the tiny bit of quilting that was on it... removed the high loft poly-fil type batting... added a simple white border to prevent cutting the edges off the red blocks when binding... used a thin cotton batting and got it all sandwiched again (took forever!).. and off he went with the quilting. Straight-line.. in the ditch... nothing fancy... but sooo much of it!  He growled at times while working on this one. Remember.. no long-arm machine here.. not even a medium one.. a very basic Kenmore sewing machine from the 1990s... work horse of a machine.. but small throat! Once quilted, he bound it and then.. gulp.. we washed it. We had NO idea if Morgan's grandmother had prewashed the fabric.  I think we used 7 color catcher strips!  No fading at all. Yeah!

It really turned out lovely and I know Morgan is going to love it.  Her grandmother, whom we met in May, told us it was queen size. Maybe as a bedspread that reaches to the floor!  We laid it on our Kingsize bed and it covers the top and drops down on the sides and the foot very nicely. I would like about 4 more inches in the drop, but still.. it is HUGE.  

It was definitely a lot of work... LABOR... for Hubby.  But I also know he loved doing it for Morgan.  He is a keeper!

"Belle"