Twin's quilts - as in two - and one of them was a long time in the making!! And I'm not sure why, except that I seem to have less and less time these days to do anything F*U*N. It's been all work and no play for far too long and some things have just got to change...as in, I need to:
1. win the lottery
2. win the lottery
3. win the lottery
There, now that we've cleared that up, let me tell you about this quilt. My cousin Rachel and I re-connected on Facebook last summer. It was great to be able to send messages back and forth and to learn about Rachel and what she'd been up for FORTY years! I discovered Rachel and I have a lot in common - including quilting! Her dad and my mom are twins and Rachel wanted us - me and her - to make them each a quilt for Christmas! Brilliant idea, I said, not remembering that I had NO TIME and 50 other projects sitting on my work table collecting dust that were waiting for my attention!
But I was game! We discussed what kind of quilt to make and how to do it - deciding she would make half the blocks and I would make the other half - and we would each make two sets of those blocks so we would end up with two quilts that were alike, yet different. After a lot of back and forth, we decided to use the few baby pictures of them that exist and put them into a picture quilt.
When I say there are only a few baby pics of my mom and uncle, I mean just that - we have about 4 of them! And they are all framed and hanging in my mom's home. When I went to Utah last fall I asked mom for some pictures, trying not to spill the beans. She told me I could take pictures with my phone of those in the frames but didn't want me removing the pics from the frames! So...you can imagine how great they turned out!!! Not great at all!! But we just had to work with what we got! I supplemented our picture quilts with pictures of our grandparents and some pictures of the twins as they grew and got older - we did the best we could - no one in our family took a lot of pictures back then.
After we had the pictures we decided on the colors and shared some of our fabrics with each other so our blocks would stand a fighting change of going together! And I think they turned out great! Rachel lives in North Carolina so it's not like we could get together and plan things out - Facebook and email saved the day!
The following pics are of Rachel's quilt - the one she put together for her dad. It's the same and yet different! I love how Rachel used sashing and that she chose a lighter shade of blue - something I never even considered!
Rachel sent me these pictures on Facebook Messenger, so I lifted them from there - it's so great we have this kind of technology! Rachel and I did have a few different pictures than the other in our quilts - this one of her dad is one of them, I think he was about 8 years old here.
After Rachel had her quilt all put together she mentioned to me that we should have included pictures of the twin's older sister, our Aunt Billie!!! OF COURSE WE SHOULD HAVE!!! But we didn't think of it in time!!! At least not in time for Rachel who was going to meet OUR deadline of Christmas! That's right - this was supposed to be a Christmas gift! Rachel contacted our cousin Michael and he gladly sent pictures of his mom, our Aunt Billie to us. Rachel's quilt was already pieced so instead of taking it apart, she put her pictures of Aunt Billie on the back. Since I was a slacker and my blocks were still sitting next to my machine waiting...aging...collecting dust...I was able to put two pictures of my Aunt Billie into the quilt top.
Aunt Billie was a real looker! This is one of her pics on the back of Rachel's quilt. I'm so glad we were able to include her - we were just so focused on making a twins quilt we didn't think about the rest of the tribe!
Rachel met our deadline and gave her quilt to her dad for Christmas - he called it a "family heirloom" and "a real treasure!" So great that he loved it! Of course, by then my mom knew about the quilt and I told her, almost weekly, that she would have hers soon!
And now she will...in time for their 84th birthdays in March! Better late than never, right? This really was a labor of love - so fun to work on this project with my cousin and so fun to see those faces that I love so much looking up at me!
Rachel told me over and over again that she wasn't really a quilter because she was just learning...well, let me show you two of her quilts! Not a quilter??? Hahahaha!
Just look at this quilt!!! This is one of Rachel's FIRST quilts! Circles and triangles!!! Crazy good, no? I love this quilt and get this, SHE DIDN'T USE A PATTERN!!! I know, incredible, but true! She just began quilting and she has far surpassed me...although that's not saying much! So let me rephrase...Rachel is an AMAZING QUILTER!
This is a picture of a quilt Rachel just made for her brother's girlfriend...that's right folks, she makes them and gives them away!!! And she didn't use a pattern for this one either...she just makes it up as she goes along!
Rachel also uses fabrics she buys at garage sales, thrift shops and tag sales - and she's not stuck in the 100% cotton category like almost all of us are - she's an adventurous quilter and will use whatever fabric she has to make her quilts POP! She reminds me just a bit of Freddy Moran (see my posts of Freddy's show on Vashon Island here and here) and at the rate Rachel produces quilts she'll be able to have her own quilt show soon!