8 years in the making

About 8 years ago, I started putting together a quilt made out of denim squares cut from old jeans, as well as some strips of flannel sheets. My grandma Borrowman even let me have her sewing machine so that I could do it. I was pretty excited to be making this quilt and took my time gathering the jeans and cutting out the squares from them and sewing the squares together. I would make bigger squares out of 9 small squares and put the flannel strip around that. I had almost all the bigger jean squares put together and had two rows complete with the jean squares and the flannel strips (I'd do 4 big squares per row). Then somewhere amidst all that sewing, I stopped. It may have been because we moved from our apartment or I may have just gotten busy with work and such. I don't really remember the real reason I stopped. I do know that my grandma's sewing machine stopped working quite as well as it had been, so that might have been a pretty large factor in the reason for stopping. So for the last 6 or so years, it's been sitting in a closet waiting to be finished, largely forgotten.

As you may know, Bryce gave me a sewing machine for my birthday. I was pretty excited about it and sewed some baby gifts for a few people, sewed a pillow back together that had been coming apart, and kept thinking of things I could sew. Yesterday I decided to pull out the old quilt and start to work on it. I was surprised at how much I had actually gotten done and wondered why I had stopped in the first place, and why I hadn't pulled it out and worked on it within the last few years. Then I remembered my grandma's sewing machine, that's still sitting up in our guest bedroom, and thought, "Oh, yeah. That's why." So after lunch and after I had put Daniel in bed for his nap, I started sewing squares and strips together. I took a short break to go get Ben from the bus then got back to work on it, stopping again to give the boys baths and then to head over to get pizza and ice cream for dinner. After we got back home and put the boys in bed, I had to run to the store to get some stuff for preschool at our house this morning. While I was there, I bought batting for the quilt and some new scissors and some thread. I got home and worked on it until I had finished putting the top together and put it with the batting and the bottom sheet and pinned the edges together to be ready to sew and finally went to bed at 1:00 in the morning.

This morning I got up and figured I'd have to wait until naptime again. Ben was sick and stayed home from school, but I didn't think that would affect my being able to finish the quilt. So after preschool and lunch, I put Daniel back in bed, got the sewing machine out, and finished sewing the edges of the quilt. I had just finished doing that and was taking a needle and thread to tack down parts in the middle so that the batting wouldn't get too bunchy when we have to wash it and through regular wear and tear, when Bryce called and wanted us to come pick him up because he was sick. So I loaded up the boys, we picked up Bryce, and came home, where I once again got back to working on the quilt. So now after 8 years and a few hours of work, a bent sewing machine needle, and a sense of accomplishment, my quilt is finally finished.

Now I need to find something else to sew.

Anyway, here's a picture of my completed quilt: