"Blue Belt" or "Blueberry"?

When my obsession with watercolor quilts began, I bought every sort of fabric you can imagine.  All colors, mostly florals, impressionistic to realistic.  Darks, mediums and lights.  It takes a lot to make a California King quilt!  I have all of these 2"x2" squares floating around my sewing/sun/Lego room.  What to do?  What to do?

This is Javimeister's senior year.  I knew I wanted to do something meaningful for him.  I mean, after all, I kinda like the kid and all and he's been such a huge help around the house all these years and very patient when I was finishing up just 'one more thing' as I've crafted through his lifetime.  A quilt is a gift of love.  Of sacrifice.  Of learning.  Of growing.  Perfect!

But there's just one problem...kids are expensive!  And we didn't have small, dainty, petite, eat-like-a-bird girls.  We had MEN!  Okay, small men.  Men in training.  Who eat.  A lot.  I mean a whole lot.  Everyday.  Sometimes more than three times a day.  Often...all day long.  And clothes?  Do you know how many pairs of jean knees a boy can blow out in a year?  Too many to count.  Plus doctors, dentists, optometrists, soccer, basketball, Tae Kwan Do, choir, band...and inevitably, a car.  Yikes!

So what's a clever and thrifty mom to do?  What women who have quilted throughout time immorial have always done...head to the scraps!  This is where all of those 2"x2" squares  came in handy.  I was on the move and ready to piece.  Once the blocks and triangles were in place...what possible fabric would compliment them all and set the pattern off?  This one was a stumper until a good friend...a kind, gentle, patient friend...picked out the sashing fabric you see now on the quilt.  I'm forever grateful!

I found the Asian cloud fabric one day at a break in a basketball toruney in our state capitol.  Middlest wanted to stay at the facility and *gasp* socialize with his friends instead of going fabric shopping with mom.  I was crushed (Lord, I know it's wrong to fib, but You and I both know I needed a little alone time).

This has been a WIP for almost a year.  I wanted crisp, white binding and I wasn't yet making my own.  Joann's kept running out of the kind I needed.  I finally finished the binding this week, washed and dried the quilt and gave it to Javi.  In one of the bottom corners, in the binding, are seventeen embroidered hearts.  One for each year he's been my boy and I've been his mommy.  Sniff. 

The good news is that I will get to enjoy this quilt longer than I would have if Javi had decided to dorm it at college.  I'll get to wash it for him and watch him curled up in it on a cold, winter's day.  Aren't our children wonderful!