Patchwork Party

Quilts have been part of my life for as long as I can remember... good Southern girl that I am.  My family is fortunate to have inherited several beautiful quilts from both sides... a few are old and time-worn, and a few have been made especially for us.  Last Christmas my wonderfully talented Aunt Dorine made a very special quilt for my Sweet Son.  He has always been a water baby... a competitive swimmer since he was 7, wants to be a Naval Architect, and loves nothing more than to hang out by an ocean any chance he gets.   He also has a serious love for sea turtles.  Here is the AMAZING piece of art she created especially for him...

This picture doesn't begin to do it justice... every single square is perfectly placed to create the "ocean", every color flows seamlessly into the next.  Really, if you never thought of quilting as art, I hope you do now.  Recently we decided to hang this behind his bed to create a "headboard"... he has very little actual open WALL space in his room, so this was the only available area, but he didn't want it folded up where he couldn't enjoy it...

You can't see all of it, but it really still looks so great... he loves it and so do I because now when I walk past his room my eye is drawn UP to the quilt and away from the pile of dirty clothes and wet towels on the floor... come on, if you have teenagers you KNOW what I'm talking about...

Our newest "quilt" started out with me searching etsy for a new shower curtain for Dear Daughter's bathroom, the shower and toilet area which she shares with the guest room.   We got one of those new fangled curve shower rods... which makes the shower feel nice and spacious but also made the existing curtain look like it had a seriously bad case of highwaters.  With all the other redecorating going on, I just wanted a new one that would match the existing paint, etc.  But it had to be extra long... I quickly discovered those are few and far between.  It also needed have enough of a "cute" factor to please DD, but not so girly that my guests would gag.

Surfing aound on etsy I came across this by The Scarlet Thread ...

VERY cute... totally wrong colors for DD's bathroom but the trick is you send this seller your fabrics and she makes it for you... with whatever fabric you choose, length, etc..  Ok, I was ready to go shop for fabric and ship them off when Mimi decided she was going to make it instead (she might remember this conversation a little differently, but whatever)... 

We took off to some of our local discount interior fabric shops (lucky in a big city to have lots to choose from)... interior fabrics aren't cheap, but we only needed about a yard of each design so we were able to find some scraps and clearance... total for all the fabric was under $30.  Mimi got on the phone with Aunt Dorine for some quilting tips and here is the result:

Perfect, perfect, perfect!  If you, like me, are not a seamstress and aren't lucky enough to have an Aunt Dorine or Mimi, you can certainly find someone like The Scarlett Thread to do the hard part for you...Modern Myrtle makes them, she provides some really great fabrics for you to select from, a bit more expensive, but even less work for you... here is one of her samples:

 There are literally thousand's of beautiful quilts on etsy... every color, pattern, and theme you could imagine.  Hang them on the wall, throw them over a chair, use them as a tablecloth... quilts add a pop of color and charm like nothing else.  Now... it's COLD here this morning, think I will go crawl under the quilt my Granny Violet made just for ME.