The Great Ebacher Quilt

So I've been meaning to blog about this the last couple of days, but Mara and Pat have kept me busy having fun with them.

I was doing my thing, running around the internet a week or two ago, learning things. First I learned a bit about bonsai. I think it's AWESOME and would love to collect my own from the wild and/or train one of my apple seedlings to be a bonsai, possibly cascading as that style really strikes me. Learned a bunch about it. Then I went to etsy, one of my favorite web places. Art coming out of their ears, over there. Although I'm yet to buy anything it inspires me endlessly, and I got to looking at quilts. Then the idea struck.

How about I sew a quilt? No really. A big quilt, for a queen or king sized bed. And being that I get ambitious with art in this fashion, why not have it be all about the fam? So here's how it goes. Later, perhaps, I'll post a nice little diagram to better visually represent this.

Around the perimeter each person gets one big square (1 ft x 1 ft) with just their name and some embroidery. Next to it (either beside or below) this same person has a large that is broken up into nine 4x4 inch blocks, each of these depicting visually an aspect of their personality or personal experience that they feel defines who they are and that they would like to use to represent themselves. So for example, I'll have a block with a little panda for china, as that study abroad experience broadened and deepened me and opened me up to the world in a way. Miesha wants to have ABC as one of her blocks to represent her love of language and pursuit of speech pathology. These small blocks will be done with individual applique and then pieced all together. There will be two additional blocks to represent interests that are common to the whole family - like the names of our foreign exchange students, owned pets, and direct inlaws. That's all on the outside. On the inside will be the Ebacher crest (yes we have a crest). I'm thinking the main colors I'll use for background will be red and cream, because black shows up nicely on both and I'd like to do most of the stitching with white and black threads.

Now I know what you're about to say. I'm insane. I know that. This is one of those big projects over the course of which I'll learn a lot of skills and probably around the middle I'll grow very frustrated with. It will occupy a lot of my free time. But I think it's AWESOME and a future heirloom, and how cool to have that in the fam, really? The idea that mom had was that after I finish sewing it, it could be exchanged between family members at christmas, and each year that family member would have it all year. Isn't that awesome? I think it's awesome.

So far I've got my squares, dad's, miesha's, and mara's. Dom, you're the only one left! So think about it and get back to me soon. Don't think too hard about it, though - impulse is a good thing with this!


In other but very related news, I got an interview monday with a veterinary clinic in vancouver for a receptionist position. I'm officially THRILLED. I rocked the phone interview. But the pay will be good (better than 10 with room for a pay increase) and with it, I can buy my first bolts of background fabric for The Quilt! Huzzah!

My time with Mara has been really fun so far, and I look forward to the last few days I have out here with her. I'm a bit too tired to recount what's happened on my trip so far, so that'll have to wait for a future post. <3

I am very happy.

- me