One year ago, Emily, daughter of the vagabond Aussie, spent one day and night with me and while here she made her very first quilt. The next day she left for camp only to return a week later to be packed up and moved to China because her dad saw fit to take a job in Beijing. Emily was gone for nine months and came home for the summer. While here she was once again bitten by the quilting bug...even received a brand new sewing machine for her 13th birthday! A few weeks back I witnessed Em sewing away on scraps from her mother's latest project - she had made what looked like a red and cream striped table runner...and had no idea what to do with it. Within an hour, we had cut the "runner" into blocks, added in other scraps and a border and this is the end result:
When I had Emily at the machine a year ago, we were under a time crunch, so using pins and ironing after each little seam - all of those time wasters - were pushed aside... pinning and ironing is like nails on a chalk board to me. Anyway, Emily had been under the influence of real quilters...those who take pinning seriously, almost elevating it to an art form and ironing/pressing/steaming each block so intently that you can almost hear the fabric scream for mercy...so when I began to help Emily resew her top, I had to keep telling her NOT to pin...I mean, she only had a few weeks to sew before returning to Beijing and did she want to get her top finished or PINNED!! Let me tell you, it was a struggle to undo all she had absorbed through osmosis by watching the real quilters...but for the short term, I succeeded...(however, while I won ONE battle, I lost the war...after finishing this top, Emily tackled her third quilt, a log cabin, and it was not only pinned and pressed beyond belief but hours of "unsewing" were involved every time there was the slightest gaff...like a seam that was off by LESS THAN an eighth of an inch! The real quilters/Nazi's now have Emily so brainwashed she'll forever be making perfect quilts...so I give up!)
Emily's quilt is backed with a soft flannel, quilted with a large stipple and her name has been quilted into the quilt at least a dozen times - along with a few messages - I love putting "secret" messages into the quilting! I figure Emily can find all the messages/names/dates during her 14 hour flight to China tomorrow!
Fly safe Emily! I'll be counting down the days until you come HOME again! Wo ai nei!
