Wildcard Quilts

ALERT: Jackspeak

Jack's frustration builds as he attempts to dribble a ball. Bounce to hand, bounce to hand, bounce . . . bounce, bounce, bounce.

Jack: "Ammit. Ammit. Ammit!"

Me: "You're doing pretty good, Jacky. Good practicing. What's that you're saying?"

"Mommy, there's a new word. I made it to say when I'm frustrated."

"Oh. And what is it?"

"Ammit."

"Ah, that sounds like a good word to use to get your frustration out."

"It is."

"You know, it reminds me of another word."

"What word does it remind you of?"

"Well, it's a word we don't say."

"But no, you have to tell me the word. I'm not sure what you mean. You have to TELL ME the word."

"Okay. The word I'm thinking of is 'dammit.'"

"Yep, that's the word. That's the word we don't say. I don't say 'dammit.' I say 'ammit.' When I'm frustrated, I say 'ammit.'"

"Good thinking, Jack. You gonna practice your dribbling a bit more?"

"Yep."

Bounce to hand, bounce to hand, bounce . . . bounce, bounce, bounce.

"AMMIT!"

Baby Quilt Friday!: Little Log Cabin

Welcome back to Baby Quilt Friday! on a Friday. (I hope, anyway . . . it's Friday in the a.m. right now. I'm hoping I can write this from start to finish before midnight.)

This is one of the first quilts I made for The Little Box of Baby Quilts, called "Little Log Cabin."

 
From The Little Box of Baby Quilts, copyright 2007 Jenny Wilding Cardon/That Patchwork Place. Machine quilted by Cheryl Brown.

The Log Cabin block is easily my favorite of all quilt-block designs. It's easy, it's fast, and you can sew it up in an infinite variety of ways. Two logs, twenty logs. Big cabin, little cabin. Arty cabin, crafty cabin. Baby cabin, big-person cabin. As long as you have a triangle set up in your workspace--cut, sew, press--construction is simple. Hypnotic, really. Almost hallucenogenic. Fun stuff.

So it's not the construction that makes this quilt a bit different. I think it's just the color scheme. I love the look of hand-dyed fabrics and wanted to try them in a baby quilt. I think the result is just fun and cheerful. If I made the quilt again, I would try green, purple, and blue hand-dyed fabrics. 'Cause, you know, I got me some boys. Baby girls are not in my future. I'm too old to have another baby just so I can use a color scheme. Sigh.

I suppose there isn't really a story behind this quilt, except that it was the first to find a home outside of our home. It is now with Adrienne, my niece's daughter. She came into the world just as my quilts were being shipped back to me from Martingale & Company, publisher of the "little box." Adrienne is fun and cheerful, so I think I chose the right quilt to give to her. If she ever gets a brother, I may just make this one up again. For the baby. And for those bonus hypnotic and hallucenogenic effects, too.

You can view more quilts from the "little box" here, watch a video about it here, and read more about each quilt here.

Next time is all about the "Baby Essentials Pocket Quilt," which actually started out as a horrible, disgusting idea. Hope to see you back here for the somewhat stinky story.

(And by the way . . . I didn't end up finishing this post on Friday. Obviously. Someday I'll have all the time in the world to post, I know. But when that time comes, what the hooey will I post about? Best just to title these "little box" posts as Baby Quilt "Friday!" posts, with the "Friday" in quotes. Heaving sigh of relief. There. Feeling much better about that now.)

Naptime in the family bed

Ah, naptime. To call it quits, right in the middle of the day. To drift off into nowhere for a while, just a little while, until you are needed again. To snuggle up to someone you love. To have someone snuggle up to you. To find that someone still sleeping next to you when you awake. Slow breath, softened face. Silence.

Oh, how I miss naptime in the family bed.

Until this fall, our Jack was a napper. We're talking two to three hour naps, every day. During my pregnancy with Charlie, Jack and I napped together every day. We'd snuggle in bed with a book around 1 p.m., and then cover ourselves up from toes to chins in too many blankets. Sometimes a little back would get a rub, sometimes a little leg would cross over a big leg. Sometimes one hand would hold another. And then, just sleep. Blissful sleep.

Sweet little Charlie came. And since the day he came home--even with four solid years of growing my own homemade mama wisdom--I haven't been able to get my two boys to nap at the same time. Not even for ten minutes. I recently took the boys on a flight to Denver with my sister and her daughter. On the flight there, my boys DID nap at the same time, Jack in his seat, Charlie in my arms. My sister looked across the aisle and noticed they were both conked out.

"Look," my sister whispered. "Your two are sleeping at the same time and you can't do anything--not even go to the bathroom!"

She was right. And my hypersonic fear of flying meant I couldn't even sleep along with them. Which is really all I've wanted to do since Charlie arrived. Sleep with both my babes in the middle of the day.

They say be careful what you wish for. It was a cruel moment--the realization that my dream of two boys napping had come true as I was silently screaming, hurtling through the air at 500 miles per hour, 30,000 feet above the earth. Strangely, though, the moment has given me hope. Remember in the movie Dumb and Dumber, when the leading lady tells Jim Carrey's character that he has a one in a million chance of hooking up with her? What does Jim's character say? He happily says, "So you're saying there's still a chance!" (Hey, sometimes you take hope wherever you can get it, even if it is from a film that has the word "dumb" in the title. Twice.)

What I'm saying is, it happened once. It can happen again. One of these days, the three of us--maybe even all four of us?--will be exhausted, all at the same time. We'll head to the family bed, tell a story or two, and then snuggle up just like this:

And sleep.

Baby Quilt Friday!: Training Wheels

It's Baby Quilt Friday!--not exactly the Friday I was hoping to post on, though. Okay, not a Friday at all. Can we just start pretending here? Play along with me, will you? Please?

This particular Friday I'm introducing this quilt, "Training Wheels," from The Little Box of Baby Quilts. Really the only quilt in the bunch of 20 that has a super-duper lean toward one gender. But, you know, girls can like trucks, too. For instance, I like pink trucks. I like them best without the truck bed in the back, and when they look like Volkswagen Passats. Yeah, that kind of truck. Those are my favorite.

But, since my little Jack liked trucks at the time I was designing--and still does--I made this quilt:

From The Little Box of Baby Quilts, copyright 2007 Jenny Wilding Cardon/That Patchwork Place. Machine quilted by Cheryl Brown.

I had planned to make smaller wheels for these trucks. I made a few. But the pieces were too darn tiny to sew without frustration. I thought of the end user--someone actually following the pattern--and felt sorry for them. So I got to thinking about trucks. What other kind of trucks were out there? Dump trucks, garbage trucks, fire trucks . . . MONSTER trucks! Made up of half truck and half gigantic wheels. That immediately solved the problem. There are four half-square triangles per wheel, but they are big enough to sew without stress.

One of my life's goals. Sew without stress. I have a sewing mantra (is that weird?). If you are swearing at your project, you're doing it wrong. Sometimes I chant it out loud. The chanting helps, especially when I realize I've just given an innocent, happy piece of fabric a horrendously dirty tounge-lashing.

This quilt also comes with a built-in race track around the border, created with yellow perle-cotton stitches. Perfect for racing whatever kind of truck the little one you quilt for likes best. All trucks, cars, buses, vans, and the like are welcome. Even pink Passat trucks. If you can find them.

You can view more quilts from the "little box" here, watch a video about it here, and read more about each quilt here.

The next time I write a Baby Quilt Friday! post--let's face it, the "I eat, sleep, and dance to the rhythm of two little boys" phase is in its most grandiose swing ever, and showing no signs of slowing--it'll be about a quilt called "Little Log Cabin." From happy yellow to pastel pink to ouch-that's-hot! pink to blazing bright orange and back again. I don't know if babies will be able to fall sleep with it, but I think they'll like it when they're awake! Hope to see you back here soon.