the {quilt}

remember back when i wrote about the baby quilt i was making for max??
i started out with a very optimistic mindset. how could a quilt be so hard? i thought. the ladies in the relief society bust out about ten a day...surely i can make one!

i had my fabric all picked out and ready to be cut in hundreds of little squares. after two days of cutting, all i had left to do was simply place the squares on and sew, sew away.

my mom was kind enough to lend me her bernina: straight from the seventies. it is a beautiful olive green color, and hasn't given her any problems after all of these years. that is, until i laid my hands on it.

i probably got about twenty good stitches in, when i started hearing very weird noises. the motor sounded like it was overheating, the needle would speed up...and then slow down...and before i knew it, the thread was in one huge, gigantic tangle.

now, i'm no sewing expert, but i decided it would be best to un-stitch what i had sewn, and start from scratch. luckily i hadn't gone too far. un-stitching would be a piece of cake. i happily started over, dreaming about the little boy who would one day very soon get to snuggle in this blankie. i fixed the thread, and after a slight detour, was ready to go again.

after un-picking for the sixth time i was ready to give up. i was getting so frustrated with the machine i was ready to throw it out the window. so i called up my grandma. she is basically wonder woman. {max definitely inherited some of his awesomeness from her} i told her of my predicament and she insisted that i come use her sewing machine because it hadn't given her any problems for years.

when i got to her house, she saw that i had glued on my squares instead of pinned them on. {that's me being lazy...} and she pulled out her ruler and box of pins and got right to work. we pinned for a good two hours, and then were finally ready to get in business. we headed up to her sewing room and she tested it out on a piece of scrap fabric before we sewed on the real deal {she understood that i was done with un-picking}. it worked, just like it should, making perfectly spaced, tight stitches, so she left it up to me to finish my quilt.

i stitched two entire columns before anything went wrong. but suddenly the machine starting acting up again. i was beginning to think it was just my touch. the engine was making weird noises...and the needle wouldn't move. great. i've ruined TWO machines {both over 20 years old} in the space of two days. i am awesome. my grandma came to the rescue, and after {at least} an hour of trying to diagnose the problem, we discovered that the belt had broken...or more like shattered. little tiny pieces of rubber were all over the inside of the sewing machine. i felt horrible. and frustrated. max was definitely not getting a baby blanket from his mommy anymore.

but, my grandma is not one to give up. she took the broken belt into the sewing store, and found a brand new belt to take its place. she and gramps fixed it up and called me the next day, telling me that the machine was back in working order! a few days later, i headed back over to finish the quilt once and for all. i finished sewing a few more stitches when, yup, you guessed it, the machine stopped working again!!! grandma kept reassuring me that it wasn't my fault--she thought the belt was a little too small anyways--so they went back to the store, and this time, found the perfect one. after a few long hours, and a very sore back, i was finished sewing those squares on. the end was in sight.

all i had left was the binding. easy, schmeesy. except for the fact that i've never done a binding before. in my life. so, my grandma helped me yet again. she is absolutely amazing. we got half of it sewn on, and then she finished it up by HAND stitching it. it would have taken me a good year just to do the hand stitching, but she got it done in less than a day.

i wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it. breaking two sewing machines, spending countless hours sewing stitch after stitch...but after seeing little max all bundled up in it i have no doubt that it was worth it.

every second.

{photo courtesy of sammy yarbrough. he took pictures of max last week and they turned out ADORABLE. more to come.}