Beginnings…planned and drafted on the three season porch here in Vermont…July 5th.
Our Hannah and her Loren had downsized and postponed their wedding. Life in a pandemic, right? Lindsey and I decided something very special needed to be stitched up to help celebrate their love…
So, when we were out in Detroit in June, helping Gretta, Ben and Maggie move out of Brooklyn, Lindsey and I snuck off for an afternoon of fabric shopping. We have collaborated on quilts before, so we were excited to undertake what we dubbed “TOP SECRET September Project”. It took us a little bit of time to get our mojo going and I’m sure we entertained the staff at the shop with our attempt at consensus building, going to and fro with bolts of fabric tucked under our arms. Once we decided on a color scheme, we got very excited about the project.
Lindsey took the fabric home and over a week or so she cut out all the squares while Flora was napping. We had some fun working out the arrangement of things…
Here we are, via FaceTime, with Lindsey in her sewing room in Detroit, auditioning an arrangement of squares on her design wall while I scowl in Vermont, not sure I am happy with things. (It takes a lot of fiddling to get things just right).
We’re getting closer in this picture…
Once we decided that things were just right, Lindsey sent the squares to me via the USPS. I set them out on my design wall in Vermont and began the fun of creating the lattice work that held the squares together (the cobalt blue).
This is how things began to come together…
In the meantime, Lindsey also cut a bunch of squares of a light colored, solid fabric and mailed them to immediate family only, along with some fabric pens. We asked folks to write a blessing, or wish or some other lovely message for Hannah and Loren on the blank square and return them to Lindsey via snail mail.
The squares came back filled with the sweetest wishes!
Lindsey sewed them all together into the backing.
Lindsey also cut strips for the binding for the quilt. Here they are, carefully organized on a drying rack in her sewing room.
Then she sewed them together and pressed them in half…
…and rolled the binding up, in preparation for the amazing quilter we hired for the job…it’s nearly a queen sized quilt and there’s no way Lindsey and I were interested in wrangling that!
Meanwhile in Vermont, Wilma was “helping” with the project by snoozing on the quilt top even while it was under the needle on the sewing machine…
An up close shot of the quilting!
Once I finished piecing the quilt top, it went back to Lindsey in Detroit, via the USPS. She dropped the finished backing, the top and the binding off at the quilter’s. Amy’s turnaround time was amazing.
When Lindsey, Scott and Flora came to stay with us in Vermont in August, Lindsey had the unfinished quilt tucked into her Subaru.
Working on hand sewing the binding to the quilt…
Lindsey and I took over the three season porch and spent spare moments during their visit, chatting over the quilt and stitching love and hope into the binding as we went. (Amy had sewn the binding to the front of the quilt by machine, Lindsey and I turned it around to the back and stitched it by hand.) Those were such sweet moments with my oldest daughter, as we held thoughts of Hannah and her Loren close to our hearts. It was really an honor to do that inter-generational stitching together.
The quilt!
The quilt back, with the bride and groom. xo
I come from a long line of sewists, and now two of my girls are carrying on the tradition. Somehow in these days of turmoil, I find comfort and sanctuary in holding a needle and thread in my hand. And I feel connected to the women who came before me and those who are now bringing that tradition into the future.
And what a gift it was to share all this far flung love and connection and hope with the bride and groom!!!
And I have so much respect for Lindsey, who worked all this magic with a wee one under her care much of the time!
xoxoxox