Jean Quilt

Elora helped me finish a big project this month. Can you tell what it is?




















Yep, it's a jean quilt! We don't have any stretcher bars or fancy equipment to make it really nice and smooth, and the lines of yarn aren't exactly even, but it's done. Yay!

I started putting squares together for this quilt about four years ago! (Yeah, I don't work on it very often.) All I knew was that I didn't want uniform squares or lines, and I wanted to preserve memories of my kids..and their pants. Okay, there are many of mine and Joseph's pants there too. That's one of Joseph's big pockets  in this picture.

























Hmm. Okay, there are lots of Joseph's pants in here. When I first started, it was really hard to figure out how to sew the squares together when they weren't going to be in perfect lines. But last year I found a technique online that made it much easier, especially considering I don't know much about sewing or quilting.




















This is the rumpliest section of the quilt, mostly because when I was sewing the edge I didn't notice the thread had run out, and when I re-sewed it I didn't repin it. So it's kinda screwy. I don't mind though, it has one of Elora's cute pockets from when she was three or four. Aww.

























What I found most rewarding about this project was feeling like I was recycling and not just throwing things away. I will definitely be making more in the future! Though it might take five or ten years.

Beeli Brown

On one of our living room walls we have four small frames, each between 5x5 and 4x4 in size. I like square frames, they're cool.

Each of these frames displays kids' current portraits. It seems Eli's was a bit out of date, as his picture was of his nine-month-old face, and he is now almost three years old! Aww what a cute guy.

But now it was time for a new one! I tend to like their portraits of serious faces rather than smiles; I don't know why.
When I first finished this, I thought I had him look too old, but really, it does look like him in his more serious moods.  His nose is a little wider though.
The originals of these portraits can be any size, then I just make a smaller copy on the computer so it fits in  the predestinated picture frames; but this drawing really isn't much bigger than the 5x5 for which it was destined.
I'd say the original is not quite so yellow as it looks on my screen.