A Sweet Thing My Husband Did

I have been knitting, but I need camera batteries, which is really irritating, because I can't post update pictures! The baby sweater grows, unskeined Elegance yarn still unwashed, back of hubby's sweater mysteriously stalled. Actually, it's not that mysterious. We've been seriously working on getting rid of all we don't need. Serenity through simplicity! Also, people with cameras are arriving soon.... The photo shoot was planned for tonight, but the newspaper had to reschedule til Saturday morning, which does not break my heart. Once I got rid of much of the clutter, I could really see the dirt everywhere. So now for the cleaning agents and good old muscle power.

And now I'll tell you the story, as I know it. I have been a serious quilter since my first daughter was born. I've made the daughters quilts, and others many, many wall hangings which, I have to say, were really pretty. I'll post pics at some point. I have sold items on eBay and made quilts for charity. I had the quilting bug like I now have the knitting bug. Well, at least three years ago, my husband decided to make me a quilt. He did it in secret, meeting with a quilt instructor after work or during his lunch hours. Their quilt shop even lent him a new-in-the-box sewing machine to work on, and he took it to work and sewed in the conference room whenever he had a minute. His bosses were great about it and really supportive of what he was doing. After our third daughter was born, he says there was suddenly no extra time and no extra money! (Tell me alllll about that, honey) So his quilt instructor met with him in the evenings for free, and her husband was really great about it, too. Sometimes I am blind-sided by how good people can be.

Well, on my birthday, hubby took me to the quilt shop, where a beautiful double wedding ring quilt top was artfully displayed in a side room. The quilt shop owner directed me over there, and I looked at the quilt top. Hubby said, "What do you think?" And I believe I said something like, "It's pretty, but I could never do it." Seriously, folks. He picked the hardest quilt pattern! For his first quilt! The colors were all interlocking in a way I had never seen before, and it was amazing. Then he handed me a scrapbook with fabric samples and pictures of the quilt being put together, along with a beautiful poem he'd written for me. Okay, I thought, he's bought me a kit to make this quilt. Or something. He's smiling at me happily and says something like it's for me. I looked at the book, looked at him, and I just. didn't. get. it. So I said, "You're just going to have to tell me what you're trying to tell me." And he did, explaining about all the time and effort, and how long it took, and how he felt really bad at times for being deceptive. I tell you what, I couldn't have been more surprised. I couldn't. If he'd told me he had been taking courses and was now a certified astranaut, I'd have been just as knocked over. I must have spent a day or two looking at him, and saying, "Seriously? You made it?" It is beautiful. Here's a pic:




He had sat down with a colored pencil and the pattern, and worked out how he wanted the colors to intersect. It's beautiful, and even with all of those curved pieces, it lays perfectly flat. Wow. The real thing that made me laugh about it, though, was when he said, "Remember when you decided to get a king-sized bed?" We had had a queen-sized, and he had to revamp the whole pattern and make it bigger. Poor guy! Amazing guy, too. I'll post the poem tomorrow. It's more beautiful than the quilt.