Across the Meadow

Yippee, my Across the Sea Quilt-a-long is complete!  And even with a few days to spare.  Since I used Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow line it seemed natural to call this Across the Meadow.

Now, here's the deal.  You may remember that I mentioned this is going to a special someone with a Halloween Birthday?

That would be my brother.  My baby brother.  Who is turning 30!  Whoa, how did that happen?  Especially since I am holding at 29.

Here's the thing.  He lives in Manhattan, he works on Wall Street, he graduated from a super elite MBA program, he wears very nice clothes and shops at places like Barney's.

Oh, yes - and he is not married, doesn't have kids and is living in a pretty sweet apartment with another single guy, just enjoying life (you know, hosting rooftop parties and all).  So, a quilt.  I know.  A handmade gift is always risky.  A quilt is probably the epitome of the risky handmade gift.  A labor of love, hours days of love, that could end up stuck in a closet or worse (with these guys, maybe to clean up after a messy round of beer pong - gulp).  But, hey, how many Vineyard Vines polos can you buy a guy?

I think he will understand that a ton of love and time and effort went into it.  Because even tough Wall Street guys far from home and family must need a nice snuggle on the couch with a reminder that they are loved and we are proud of them and miss them.  Maybe someday there will be a baby to play on it?  Maybe someday a wife will appreciate it at the foot of a guest room bed or draped on a sofa.  He has a very sweet girlfriend, so it's not that hard to imagine...  In the meantime I'm hoping it keeps him warm on those cold New York nights.  Happy 30th Birthday, Brendan - you always make me proud!

 

It will come with me to the Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild meeting for show and tell tomorrow (after all, Jennifer is our president!), and then it will be wrapped up and shipped off to the Big Apple.  I figure I'll give him this post's URL on his big day, maybe.

*Just a few specs on the quilt.  I used Kona Raffia as the background and Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow for the rest.  I did some straight line quilting with an Aurifil variegated thread in shades of tan/brown.  Sets of 3 rows, an inch apart, in the center of each cross block and at the intersections.  I (once again) used Rachel's genius binding method of zig-zag stitching found here.   I don't even mind hand sewing the binding, but this approach just looks so cool, I thought it especially appropriate for this quilt.  The back is just awesome.  At first when I started cutting and piecing all those extra blocks (okay, 6 extra blocks) I was wishing I just did a solid backing, but I'm so glad I didn't.  I love the floating cross blocks, it makes it like two quilts in one!  I would definitely recommend this quilt-a-long, you can see all the cool variations on the pattern in the flickr group.

Thanks for reading my sappy, long-winded post! Let me know if you have any good quilt gifting stories (or bad!)...