I lied. One more wedding-ish post. It’s not truly wedding, more wedding adjacent. I am many things: mom, wife, grandmother, daughter, store owner, scrapbooker, gardener, snowboarder, giraffe’s best friend & quilter.

Quilting is the twin sister of scrapbooking. Quilting is scrapbooking with fabric. Many of the quilts I make are memory quilts. I created one for my Oma when the dementia took over, tulip blocks with pictures of each child & grandchild to help her remember. It’s like a quilt scrapbook. I did similar ones for my mom, my father-in-law & our MMA instructor when he got stage 4 cancer.  Mostly though I like to make quilts that reflect the people they will belong to.

The very first quilt I made was for Soren. My first born. I had just married Dave, become mom to Christian & Nicholas, and I was finding my way in his very American family. It wasn’t easy. And then I discovered his aunt Laurie, just a couple years older than me, and his Nanny. They introduced me to the timeworn American tradition of quilting.

I fell in love from the moment I walked in on Laurie, sitting in a rocking chair, hand sewing Sunbonnet Sue blocks. I asked a million & one questions, and within half an hour I was standing in Nanny’s back room, filled floor to ceiling with fabrics, getting my hot little hands stuffed with fabric. Amazing, beautiful, colorful cotton fabrics. Each one better than the one before it.

I spent hours pouring over quilting books, magazines, trying to narrow it down to just one pattern. I couldn’t. I finally decided to pick one boy and make what he wanted. I picked Soren, the oldest. He picked a pattern (Hole in the Barn Door) and promptly hated all my new treasured fabrics.

Off to fabric store we went! Me, Laurie, our boys in tow, to the fabric store! Soren picked his favorites. His favorites. Not mine. But I was so happy to have a pattern. A fabric stash! I couldn’t wait to get home & sew. My mom donated her old machine to me. Laurie donated a cutting mat & rotary ruler and I was off.

I made a lot of mistakes in that first quilt. Mostly because I couldn’t wait to finish it. To see a quilt I made. To gift it to someone I love. No one ever noticed the mistakes. Soren loved that quilt. He slept under it until his feet, then ankles, then knees didn’t fit. He covered his dog with it in the cold Minnesota nights. Then Cole loved it. Then Tessa. Today Dane still drags it out of the closet for roadtrips. That first quilt, with all it’s imperfections, has been loved.

I have wanted to make Soren a new quilt since he outgrew that first quilt.  He did not want a new quilt. Quilts are not cool. Quilts are ugly. Quilts suck. So I waited. I made other quilts, for other people, and I waited. When he & Lindsay announced their engagement on January 1st, I knew my wait was over. I’m not sure what I was more excited about, the engagement or a green light to make a wedding quilt.

I wanted a quilt that said Soren & Lindsay. I wanted something that was them. A perfect blend of masculinity, feminity, love. I found the perfect pattern and rejected it again & again. I found the perfect patterns and found fault, again & again. And then? Then Moda came out with the most swoon-worthy fabric ever. It just screamed Soren & Lindsay.

It also screamed Taylor, Madison, Liam, Emma, Mason, Olivia and every other name known under the blue Heavens. It was hard to get. Especially in Germany. But I presevered. I got the bits & pieces, bit by piece. And finally, after months, I had all the colors of the Ombre Confetti Metallic Fabric by V and Co. for Moda that I needed. I was over the moon.

I am a huge fan of Jenny, from the Missouri  Star Quilt Company, and I love watching her videos on YouTube. A couple of years ago she introduced me to Rob, droooooooooooool, from Man Sewing.  And Rob introduced me to the amazing magic of The 3 Dudes Quilt. This wizardry, concocted by the men of quilting, would become Soren & Lindsay’s wedding quilt.

Inherently masculine in design, the 3 Dudes Quilt is made feminine by the gorgeous Moda fabrics. I focused only on the blues (for Soren) and greens (for Lindsay). The gorgeous metalic dots covering the fabric makes it feminine & glittery. So Lindsay. The 3 Dudes pattern interwines into an almost-celtic knot. A shout-out to our first trip together, the three of us: Soren, Lindsay and me. And Dave. And my sister Manon, to Ireland.

The blues & greens, and I tossed in the sand colors as well, gave it a tropical beach twist. Soren has loved fish, fish tanks, diving, since he could talk. Lindsay loves the beach, but hates boats & diving. Or did. For Soren she learned to dive. He wanted nothing more than to dive on their honeymoon. She learned for him. It turns out, she loves diving!

I wanted their quilt to reflect not just each of them, evoke memories of the past but also to hold promise of the future. I know, I know. It’s a lot to ask of a quilt. That’s the thing with quilts. They aren’t just a blanket. Each quilt tells a story. And that is me. I am a storyteller. I tell stories here on the blog, in my scrapbooks and with my quilts. This quilt was a labor of love. I couldn’t wait to share it with them, and now I’m sharing it with you:

Opening the box. Aaaah! They almost see it!

“Did you make this?” Yes. Yes I did.

Soren is impressed it’s long enough for his whole body to hide under.

Really, really impressed.

my WIP… work in progress, on the living room floor.

My 2nd favorite part of quilting… the long arm!

The final quilt, hanging in West Virginia at Sherah’s house. I couldn’t have finished without her.

Bonus image: Sherah & I stayed up late hand sewing the binding days before the wedding.

My first quilt. Soren’s first quilt.