A Blanket of Memories

I had this idea. After allowing my son and best friend to go through and choose several of Daddy's ties, I still had a lot of beautiful ties. Mother had carefully choosen each and every one of them, except the Marine Corp ties that were gifts, and the older they got, the more expensive and works of art the ties became.

So out of no where, never having seen one, I thought, wouldn't it be a great idea to make a quilt out of Daddy's ties. But, where to begin. My friend, Lori was going to be visiting this summer and she had beginners knowledge of quilting and the necessary portable sewing machine. So I sent her some links of examples and asked her if she was game to give it a try. Sure, she said. She had no idea what she was setting herself up to do!

First we had to come up with a design. We laid out one starburst of ties and liked it. But, the quilt was going to be king-size so we decided on 4 starbursts of ties. I laid them out on my current bedspread and began to figure out exactly which ties and in what order. Daddy loved burgundy and Mother loved blue so I had a natural blend of color. Then I discovered that Daddy had quite a few Marine Corp ties, some burgundy, some navy so I decided to put a Marine Corp tie in each of the starbursts, all in the same position of the starburst, pointing to the windows. We would use circles of silk fabric in the middle of the starbursts, two of burgandy and two of navy to match the Marine Corp ties.

Next, I decided that each starburst should be framed in burgundy. Then, what to do with the tails of the ties we had used. A quarter starburst was made for each bottom corner of the bed.

I looked at several off-white fabrics for the backing but just couldn't decide. Finally I saw some navy checked material that looked like material you would make a man's sport shirt out of and matched with khaki, I had my backing.

Now mind you, with each design I created, Lori would roll her eyes, sigh a lot until she finally agreed to implement my suggestions. And work, my goodness, she spent dozens of hours in my basement making this happen. I did a lot of the basting and now I will do the actual quilting but thanks to her, I now have a gigantic piece of my parents' history to marvel out and sleep peacefully underneath.