The Making of an Oklahoman Quilt

It all started with one thing.

A Christmas gift.

Not just any Christmas gift.  But this one.

My daughter Kayla asked for a sewing machine for Christmas.  Nothing else..just a moderately priced machine that would allow her to dash off all her vintage creations from baby booties to stuffed Owls.

Don’t ask.

Anyway, we got her the one you see above..which led to ..horror of horrors…

Me taking up sewing again.

Sewing and I don’t dance well together.  We tend to have a love/hate relationship and the scales are mostly tipped in favor of hate.  There was an incident once involving a Halloween Statue of Liberty costume in turquoise lamé that about did me in and I put the darn machine in its case and stuck it into a closet somewhere and forgot about it.

However over this past Christmas break, we got the bright idea to make quilts.

I love quilts.

They are my blanket of choice when watching a movie, or pouring over the pages of  my favorite read.  However, the two quilts  that we have in the living room don’t match anything our house anymore.  Still, I love snuggling under them.

So we went and picked out fabrics – hers more vintage and eclectic, and mine in classic colors to match my living room in browns, burgundy, gold and green.

We cut out squares.

We cut out MANY squares.

And then we laid them out on the floor to determine how we wanted them to look – seven wide and 9 or 10 deep.

And then, we began to stitch the squares together in rows.

Along the way, we had a few problems.

Namely Sam.

And Max.

Apparently they love quilts as much as we do.

Next we sewed the rows together, which was a little more challenging as we had to line up the squares and make them meet the next row.

Then we had to cut and sew the quilt backing onto the front.

The backing is this wonderfully soft and warm material.

Next, we had to insert the quilt batting which is like a thin soft sheet of fluffy cotton inside the quilt.

And then we had to sew up the bottom and all around the four sides and then quilt down the lines of the squares going both ways. This was a total of 20 lines going up and down the quilt.

It got easier as we went. And I got to a point where I wasn’t afraid of sewing anymore…or for that matter, sewing straight lines.

And one day…they were done.  There was Kayla’s…

And there was mine.

And they’re warm and soft and cozy and wonderful.

But even better than that are the warm and cozy memories I have of sewing quilts with my daughter.