Quilts for Dad!

My sweet husband was the first to buy me a sewing machine. With no help from anyone he went out and purchased a brand new, top of the line, Kenmore sewing machine for me, to celebrate our first christmas together as husband and wife. I LOVED it... and him for getting me such a wonderful gift. I sewed many an outfit for my children on that first machine and used every accessory it had to offer. Nearly every spare minute I could scrape together, I used it to sew. With young children, those moments were few and far between, but oh so precious. I knew nothing about quilt making in those days, which was probably a blessing because once the bug bit, I was hooked. The pictures below show the progression of my quilt making abilities, except for the first photo. This is a picture of one of the many t-shirts that I had fun making for my oldest son. I was always making him and my oldest daughter t-shirts to wear. With the left over fabric from my daughter's t-shirts, I made her underwear to match. They had elastic back in those days that looked like frilly lace. It was so sweet looking! When I made this particular t-shirt, I had taken a free-hand embroidery class. It was a great class and I loved moving the fabric all over the machine without any restrictions. With the feed dogs down and no presser foot to hinder me, I could 'draw' any picture that I wanted. I made this lion for James. He wore it every time it came out of the dryer. As you can tell by the many stains, it was one of his favorites. I loved that he loved this shirt.



My dad, bought me my very first Bernina sewing machine. Along with the machine, he bought me a serger, a cutting table and mat, and thread galore. He bought the same for my mom. I still have an ongoing love affair with Bernina to this day. I have upgraded more than once and am still astonished at all that these machines can do. Over the years I have made a few quilts for my dad and these are what I share with you now. The first one can't really be called a quilt. It was just a quick throw that I made for him to take to football games. I know, I know... it is not so attractive, but at the time I thought it was.



The next one was a much smaller quilt and required a little hand-work. My dad happens to like bears a lot, so I thought he would enjoy this one. It has been used and washed more than I can count.... especially by my niece Kathrine.



I got a little more serious about the next quilt that I made for my dad. He had a thing about having his monogram being embroidered on everything back in those days... especially his shirts. Every new shirt he purchased, he had me monogram his initials on the cuff and in the center of the shirt's placket. With this quilt, I not only monogramed his initials, but a few other things that I thought he might like.



He finally let me know that he wanted a much bigger quilt.... one that would completely cover him and one that would keep him warmer than the other quilts had. So I made this quilt out of flannel for not only dad, but for mom as well, and used wool batting between the layers.



And here's the back. As you can see, I ran out of the main fabric that I needed to cover the back. Since none of the shops had any of the fabric left that I was using, I simply pieced all of the fabric that I had left over from the quilt top and made it into one big back. I think it worked out just fine.