This blog chapter takes a well-deserved turn to recognize my wife's labor of love. Barb loves to quilt and has been doing it for many years. The last thing she did when visiting her terminally ill Mother was for them to make a quilt together. She made our son a quilt from all his old collector t shirts and has even taught others how to do the same. She even made quilts for a couple of our grandsons. This project was a perfect challenge for her during our winter months at our Texas hideaway.
This project is a whole new challenge for her. She did her pattern and design research first and then once she collected all my ties, setting sail full of ambition. I wore a lot of ties when I taught elementary from NHL, World Wildlife Federation, Disney, Halloween, Christmas among many others. A list too long to remember. It was never about 'dressing up' for me as it was to capture the kid's attention to just how much of a kid I still was. I even had a collection of Detroit Red Wing ties I wore on game days. I didn't realize just how many till I saw several storage boxes full of them. She spent hours each week sitting on the couch disassembling them. This was my first lesson as I learned quite a bit about tie construction. I didn't realize there were so many parts to single tie. When beginning to write this chapter I was amazed at just how many patterns and designs there are for tie quilts.
Disassembly Tops
Disassembly Bottoms
Disassembly takes the most time, about 30 minutes for each tie. I was surprised to learn that there are several different tops and bottoms with each tie not including the backing.
Lining up and tacking down
Lining up and tacking down
The current 'King Size' template
I was continually amazed at just how large this would be. I told her so several times during construction, but she had everything set to scale on paper and in her mind. What an artist! This was an ambitious project and quite expansive and time consuming. Barb worked a bit at a time for many, many hours to put it together. I can only imagine how daunting a project this must have seemed to her. The final stages were put together in the cabin with Barb pretty much taking over the cabin completely.
By the end of January Barb had spent 8 weeks on the project but was only a bit over half done. At this point she also received her long overdue Christmas present, a new adjustable mount sewing machine table. Apparently, the supply chain woes continue.
As time went along Barb began to realize that this project was getting out of control. The finished product would be larger than could fit any bed. She decided to remeasure and explore making 3 separate quilts. After 13 weeks she had finally finished the 4 quilt squares and just needed to get all the fabric, etc. to finish assembly.
In the end Barb spent 16 weeks on this project, literally hundreds of hours hand cutting, stitching, sewing, not to mention several trips to Hobby Lobby for materials. It was fun to occasionally watch her as she worked, but she preferred to be left alone for her concentration. We have traveled quite bit since our retirement 10 years ago and as such hasn't left Barb much time for anything but reading. She loves to sew and when her sister gave Barb her sewing machine Barb decided to bring it to our winter place where she would have the time to invest.
Barb has never considered herself to be a craftsman, but she most assuredly is. She loves the work, the result of her mother's teaching. The largest, most time-consuming project she has ever completed, she is proud and certainly deserves my admiration and love of the art. I am certainly proud of her.
Finished #1
Finished #2 King Size
"Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity and passion to that art learns to value the work of their hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows"
Jennifer Chiaverini
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Wonderful
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