Yesterday, about seven hours before my brother arrived for his birthday dinner, I finished his quilt. I finished his quilt that I started for him in 2004. Let's just take a second to put that in perspective. That was before I lived in this house. In fact, it was two homes ago. It was before I had kids. It was before I was married. It was before I had even met my husband. Yeah, basically, I was a completely different person back then. The single, middle school math teacher, who really didn't have much time for her newish quilting hobby.
Oh, and by the way, I actually gave my brother this quilt as a Christmas present in 2004 (photo above). I think that was his Junior year of high school. I wrapped up about eight finished blocks for his gift and then "was going to finish it up for him." See, he even tried them on. And fake slept. ;-) Well, here we are, twelve years later. I know there are people with WIPs older than mine, but come on. They are snowball blocks. I've completed over 40 quilts (granted, many of them mini quilts) since I started his. Sheesh!
I'm thrilled to have finally finished this gift for him. I'm also relieved to not have the weight of a twelve-year-old WIP on me. I haven't yet determined what my next oldest WIP is, the quilt that will now fill that taunting role in my life. It's just better not to know. ;-)
While I was working to quilt it in the last few days, my son came in and asked me what I was doing. Now, he's a quilter. He knew I was quilting the quilt. I was confused. It turns out, what he wanted to know was what patterns I was quilting. He said he thought I would be quilting baseball players and baseballs and stuff. (The kid clearly thinks my free motion skills are beyond where they are.) So together we joked that maybe we could find some parts that looked like players in my meandering quilting. Here's what he, my sister and I came up with:
Player fielding a ground ball:
Pitcher:
Catcher:
Runner:
The back is simple. I used up the last of my baseball mitt fabric. (The last of the red baseball fabric went on the back of my daughter's first quilt.) and I snuck in some of the red fabric that I used when I made my kids' baseball clothes.
Here's the 58" x 83" quilt all washed and crinkly, just in time to give to Chris.
My son excitedly helped deliver the gift.
I named this quilt Finally. I'm glad that got a chuckle from Chris when he received it. He also appreciated that my label has washing instructions on it. :-)
Happy 28th Birthday, Chris!
I'm linking up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.