I’ve Got Your Back

Back in this post I told you about my cousin Melissa (Missy to me!) and her husband Derek and how as newlyweds they had to face the unthinkable. Derek went on his final journey on January 20, 2011. Missy has been unbelievably strong throughout all of this. Like I said before, she is an old soul, I really admire her.

Shortly after he passed she contacted me via Facebook and asked if I made quilts. She had an idea and wanted help. I immediately, without hesitation offered my services in whatever way I could. Her idea was to make a quilt using Derek’s old dress shirts. She had some images of modern quilts she had seen and liked. She left the rest up to me. I told her to pack them up along with any other accent fabric and backing fabric she wanted used and I’d take  it from there.

The box of fabric and shirts arrived right after our big snow storm last week. I laundered the new fabrics and started gestating ideas. Today is Valentine’s Day, the day for lovers (and angry, cynical, single people, but that is another post.) What better day to get started on this very special project? I thought I’d make a few test squares and post a picture on Facebook for Missy to see and get her reaction. Of course in my usual style, one or two test squares became 4 or 5. But now I have an idea of how to proceed.

 

There are strange and interesting things outside of the cutting and sewing that are happening while I’m working on this project. I never met Derek in person, never even had an online conversation with him. All I know of him has come from Missy’s posts and stories shared of their life together. But I feel him as I work on this project. Back when we were first married I used to iron Steve’s dress shirts for him every week. It may sound gross but when you iron a person’s shirt, you can smell them in the steam. I don’t mean to say that Missy sent me funky shirts. Not at all, but they do hold an essence of Derek. I think that is kind of the idea of the quilt.

Also when I’m working I usually listen to my iPod. Sometimes I listen to various podcasts and sometimes music. Today I was in a My Chemical Romance mood. At first songs from their Welcome to the Black Parade album didn’t seem at all appropriate, and a little creepy and weird.

But then there was this one:

To carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone believe me
Your memory will carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marches

On and on….

Or from my favorite MCR song, Famous Last Words:

'Cause I see you lying next to me
With words I thought I'd never speak
Awake and unafraid
Asleep or dead
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay, I'll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home

Don’t know if Derek or Missy were/are MCR fans but someone was sending me a message. I’m going to try to continue to post progress, images and impressions as I work on this project.

Edited to add: I'm calling this quilt the "I've got your back" quilt. Partly for the play on words because it is made out of shirts and because I have the feeling that Missy and Derek really did have eachother's backs.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Pretty Polka Dotty Pillows

I have had some time to do some creative things recently. With last week’s SnOMG hitting us squarely in the face here in Illinois I had two days to sew. I didn’t spend all of that time in my sewing room but I did find time for some pillows.

The big red couch in our new basement room looks great and really brightens up the “chick cave” we’ve made down there. But it needed more. The top pillow was inspired by a project I worked on at work from a new book we got in (I apologize I forgot the name and author, I’ll try to remember to get it tomorrow when I’m at work. It has some really great projects in it!) I loved the improvisational piecing and use of scraps.

I also wanted to use the red and white polka dots for piped edges and put in an invisible zipper now that I own a #35 Bernina Invisible Zipper foot. So I did:

Pillow details VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

I’m just loving the Moda “It’s a Hoot” fabrics, especially the polka dots. The second pillow I made using a similar improvisational log cabin block. On this one I chose not to do the piped edges and put the zipper right in the seam.

It’s funny how things work out. Originally I intended to decorate the basement in yellow and grey, very modern and cool. But then we went with the red slipcover, which I love. That led to opening up a whole world of color opportunities. The nice thing about a couch with a slipcover and pillows with zippers, I can change them whenever my mood and budget allows. By keeping the hard furniture and most importantly, the walls, a simple neutral color, I can really play with the rest of the stuff. This is surprisingly a new revelation for me. I’ve always been a “paint it all the colors of the rainbow” kind of decorator. I always thought paint is cheap, furniture is not. So I’d buy boring colored furniture and paint the walls deep saturated colors. I’m liking the change. Not enough to go back to the builder’s beige we had on every surface of this house when we moved in but it is a nice palette cleanser so to speak.

Necessary Evils

Today is that day every year that I vow to myself that I’ll do it all different this year. But I never do and so the cycle continues. A year ago I bought myself that nice blue accounting ledger with the promise to myself to record all my sales and expenses and to keep everything up to date. Well yeah, I filled it all in today from January 2010 through December 2010. I still have credit card statements to go through and then I’m going to see if I can make sense of it enough to enter it all into QuickBooks. Then it all gets sent off to our tax accountant for him to scratch his head and wonder how I’m capable of feeding myself.

I had a decent system set up by professional accountants when I had the store. But I’ve found it was overkill for my Etsy business and I thought just keeping records the old fashioned way would suffice. But now I’m not so sure. I’m sure there is a middle ground somewhere but of my many talents, bookkeeping/accounting isn’t one of them. AT ALL. First failing grade I ever received was in Accounting. It makes sense to me in theory but in practice I’m an epic fail.

You will also notice the two cans of Diet Pepsi and the now empty fun-size candy bar bag. Maybe that explains why my heart feels like it is about to beat out of my chest.