Quilting for Christmas

It all started on Thanksgiving 2007, in the kitchen of Rulon and Rebecca Simmons. An invitation to join the madness of "Black Friday" was extended to me from Lynette Loveridge, my awesome sister-in-law. She and Rebecca, my awesome mother-in-law, had big plans to venture out the next morning to take part in the madness that is BARGAIN SHOPPING. The targeted location, Joann's Etc. The bargain, all flannel material $.99/yd, yes that is correct, only $.99. This included all prints and solids (except the ones marked specifically for quilting.) How could I turn down the invitation? Oh yeah, Mike had to work the next morning at midnight until 10am. Who would stay home with my 4 children? After some quick thinking and mini-scheming, Lynette and I asked Bampa Simmons. The offer that made it irresistible was the use of our high-speed Internet. He so graciously accepted the opportunity to spend some quality time with my children and we were on our way to some shopping. The next morning, I woke up at 6am, all of the kiddies still nestled snugly in their beds, and I kept an eye out the front window for Bampa and my ride. Rebecca drove us and we headed down Ridge Rd to Joann's. The anticipation grew, none of us had been shopping on Black Friday before, and after all of the crazy news stories that I had seen on TV about people getting trampled, I wasn't sure how this would go. We managed to find a parking spot in the back of the lot, and walked carefully into the store, (the lot was a little slippery.) As we walked through the door we were amazed to see people's carts piled so high with fabric. Both Lynette and I commented on how crazy people were to have that much fabric in their carts...little did we know! We walked over to the flannel section of the store, which was packed, and started to look around. Suddenly, fabric that may not have appealed to us in the past, started to become so irresistibly cute, that we now had a cart full, and had to go back for a second cart to fit everything. We had a great time! We ended up there for at least 3 hours, and were standing around the aisles of flannel waiting for the women who were restocking from the cutting tables to replenish the supply. At one point I walked by a cart and touched a fabric inside it and commented on how cute it was, you should have seen the look on the ladies face! I wasn't going to take it out of her cart, but that seemed to be her concern, it was pretty funny! Only I could get into a fight at Joann's at 7am, over fabric! It must be a talent, or a scent I let off, I don't know! So when all was said and done, I purchased enough fabric to make a quilt for each of my 4 children! I left there so excited and ready to quilt! The hard part now was coming up with which patterns to use. Mike didn't think it could be done since I had only 4 weeks and 4 quilts to make. I got off to a great start with Tyler's quilt, and within days of purchasing the material, was well on my way. I went to the library in the following days and checked out 5 quilting pattern books and thumbed through those many times. I finally secured a pattern for McKee's quilt and started cutting out his material also. His quilt was a little tricky to hide because he's old enough to notice what I'm doing, and his material had basketballs on it, and that made it more obvious I think that it was for him. I finally decided on a pattern for Brooke's, actually, I designed one for her, and decided to go with a rag look, which I love! Seth's quilt gave me the most trouble. I had planned to use a great pattern called crazy eight, and got the pattern from Lynette, and cut out the material like the pattern said, and then I decided that I didn't have the right material for that pattern. So, back to the drawing board. I ended up making up my own pattern, and I really like it. So, on Sunday, December 23rd, after church, I spent the afternoon sewing my heart out, trying to get the quilts done. I went to bed at 11pm, after I had sewn a whole piece of material wrong side up. I didn't even unpick it, I just put the material down, turned off my machine, and the lights and then headed up to bed. I figured that if I made such an obvious mistake, I was too tired to keep going. So I set my alarm for 6:30am on Christmas Eve morning so I could get up and get sewing. By about 8am I decided that the kids were getting quilt tops on Christmas morning, and I would get them quilted together during the next couple weeks. I gave myself until noon that morning to sew, and then I had to get some cooking done since my family was coming over for dinner and festivities. So, here they are, the 4 quilt tops for my kids. They all loved their blankets by the way, I'm sure Tyler liked his too, but he was too busy trying to chew on everyone else's new toys, and he didn't show much interest!

Tyler's Quilt


Brooke's quilt


Seth's quilt


McKee's quilt