Memory Quilt and Mother's Day

I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day, we sure did!

Having a deadline is a good thing for a busy quilter, don't you think?  It's practically essential for me these days!  I set Mother's Day as my deadline for the memory quilt for my sister in law, which I've shown  in progress before, made of my brother in law's shirts.

Spray basting set up in the garage by myself worked well.  And I think I got about 500 steps in with all the walking back and forth and around and around as I worked on each layer!  This was the first time I'd used the more expensive 505 spray, and sure felt it was worth the cost.  Actually, I bought it on a show special at Road to California so it wasn't that bad.  I did some very simple quilting with my walking foot and midnight Saturday night I put the last stitch in the machine binding.  On Mother's Day morning I washed, dried, and labeled the quilt before getting the house set up for our 18 adult guests, two toddlers and two infants coming for our annual Mother's Day brunch.  I presented Mariana with her quilt after we ate. 

She shed a few tears but enjoyed pointing out the shirts she had bought for her husband Jan over the years and remembering his favorites.  If you can tell from the picture, there are a number of rows with the same shirt fabric, two vertical and three horizontal.  

 

I used some of the shirt fronts for the backing, sort of mimicking the block design with the two solid side panels  I left the pockets on, though I stitched all but one closed.  You can see the simple quilting in this shot. 

Wrapped in love. I asked Mariana to send me pictures of the quilt posed on Jan's beloved sailboat, where he spent so much of his free time. She said she wasn't sure if the quilt would live on the boat or be at home with her.  I told her that's the beauty of quilts, they are portable!  I surely have enough shirt fabric to make another quilt--it's surprising how much fabric a shirt gives up.

Grandson Cove with his mom, watching our neighbor train their pointer puppy to hunt using a remote control car.  Cove was very disappointed when the car stopped working after a while and told everyone, "It needs a new battery".

 

 My brother Kevin charming his newest grandnephew, Hunter.

Me with my three grownup kids!  Love them to pieces.  Maybe we'll Photoshop Dad into the picture and use this for a Christmas card.  He took a good picture.

 A very young Uber driver--I title this "Sorry, I don't take change!"

 Gorgeous peonies given to me for Mother's Day. It was a wonderful day!