Rainbow Me Happy Quilt

This was one of my Finish-A-Long projects for the third quarter over at Quilter in the Gap! I'm so glad I finished something! My original post for the third quarter is here.

I'm going to share this over at Quilt Story on Tuesday... and possibly more linkies (just check my sidebar).

I'm so happy this quilt is finished! I really enjoyed making it, and at the same time, I had a really hard time making it.

Before I go into the story of it, here are the stats:

Quilt finishes at: 40.5" x 54"

All charms are from the different charm swaps I've participated in

the binding is an old insect binding, I think my mom gave it to me a long time ago.

the back is minky dimple dot - yellow and turquoise.

pieced, quilted and bound by me.

I decided to make this quilt when I found out that a little boy from our old ward was diagnosed with leukemia. What horrible news, I didn't even know how to respond when my friends told me about it. It makes my heart ache to think about it still. Especially now that we are so far away, the only thing I could think of to do was make a quilt. I think partially for me because I had this feeling of helplessness but wanted to do something. The boy is just younger than Jackson's and they were in nursery together. He is the sweetest little boy. 

For some reason I had such an emotional struggle with this quilt from the very beginning. (I know friends and people from that old neighborhood read my blog sometimes, so I hope I don't offend anyone in what I'm going to write, but I feel like I should be honest with my feelings.) The family is very kind and generous and we really enjoy them, they also helped us a lot, and are grateful for that. As can happen sometimes in a ward or church group, you are thrown together with people that  you probably wouldn't be friends with otherwise. There were wonderful people in the ward, and we love and hope to stay friends with all of them, but I just want to be honest and say that there were some people in the ward that we personally felt very awkward around. There was always that "fake frienship" feeling with our interactions (and I'm not saying that this family was one of those). For some reason while making this quilt, I was flooded with the mix of emotions that I have from everyone in that old ward, good and bad, happy and sad. I kept thinking about how when we left we felt some people were glad we were going (though it wasn't as bad as Springville where when someone called me to schedule an appointment with the bishop and I told him we weren't in the ward anymore his reaction was, "GREAT! I'll let him know!". Ok. goodbye to you too.) We did get offers for help and are so grateful for them, but one person called, "someone said you needed help with this... do you really need help? ..." I guess they sounded put out by it. Neil said, "no, don't worry about it" their chipper response, "Awesome! Well, just let us know!" I don't know if that says something about us or them. ?. ;) I don't say this to put anyone down. It's just the fact that we had interactions like that when we left (and I'm not saying that everyone should have been in tears either. We miss our friends, and we're still friends and we all love each other, but it also stinks to know that some people seemed over joyed to be rid of us.) Ok, enough with that.

So making this quilt was a mix of all those emotions. I kept wondering if I should even make the quilt. "Are they going to enjoy it? Will they be grateful for the time and effort I put into it? Will they end up donating it and getting rid of it? Am I stupid for even trying this?" I really struggled with my confidence in making this, and that's never happened like this before. I've never made anything like this before either though, so maybe I'd have these feelings anyway. I don't know. Thinking about the boy is what kept me going with it. It's for him, so who cares what any one else will think right?!

As the quilt came together, I could tell on the days that I was having these struggles, that it really affected the quality of workmanship that went into it. For instance, I basted the minky wrong, which then led to puckers in my quilting. blah. Nothing too serious, but it's frustrating. My quilting isn't amazing either. But I still like it and think it's ok for not having FMQed in a long time. It always amazes me how your feelings or what kind of a day you're having really effects how you sew. Lesson learned: DON'T Quilt if your having an off day! I've met a lot of people that have noticed the same thing. ;)

Onto a happy note, I did enjoy making this. Everything with this quilt had one end goal in mind: that it will be something cheerful and fun for a little boy to look at and enjoy. I picked bright colors, with lots of shapes, textures or pictures. I did a swirly star quilting. I love Hunter's quilt and looking for the stars in it, and thought those would be fun here. I wanted to put a solid, darker/bolder binding on the quilt, but decided on the insect fabric. What boy doesn't enjoy grasshoppers, bees, dragonflies, etc?! Ok, there are butterflies and lady bugs on it too, but those are insects as well, so they can still be boyish. ;)

I hope that sending this off will be a release for me and I will be able to let go of all those negative emotions. And more than that, I hope that it really will be a happy rainbow-y quilt that will brighten this little boys day and help carry him through his months of therapy and treatment.

We love you "T"!
Love, the Bohns.