Bit by bit

 Today I started the part of the memory quilt that terrified me the most. While the quilt has been commissioned by the new baby's aunt it is really at its heart from the baby's grandmother who is no longer alive. In designing this quilt with the baby's aunt I felt strongly that the quilt should say that it was from the grandmother. My client agreed.

This grandmother, being the thoughtful woman she was, came up with a special grandma moniker for herself. It was Shemama.  I had asked my client to see if she had a card or letter that was signed that way. Unfortunately, she did not.

My client did the next best thing and cut and pasted letters written by her mother to get the message we wanted.

My next task was to get those letters onto the quilt. There are many ways to do this task. I chose to use an old-fashioned method.

First I printed out the image. Then I cut a piece of cotton batiste to the right size.  I taped the image to my window, taped the white cotton to the image, and carefully traced the letters in pencil. I then went over the letters with a Sharpie.

I then pasted the letters to the quilting cotton ( I actually included a couple of layers of plain cotton under the quilting cotton to give the next step a bit of support.) Basting keeps all of the layers from shifting around.

The next step is hand embroidering along the marked letters.

I listened to music to keep me focused on my work.

I didn't have embroidery floss. I used four strands of sewing thread in an embroidery needle. An embroidery needle has a big eye to carry thick thread and a sharp point to get through the fabric easily.

Bit by bit, the embroidery got completed.

My next task was to remove the white cotton.

These days I have been thinking about how so many folk tales have endless tasks that need to be completed as part of the test given to the hero (or heroine). Clearly, those tales are told to give you courage in the middle of a seemingly endless task.

I started pulling threads one by one.

At first, it seemed like the task would take me all day.

But before too long there were signs of progress. At first, I used a needle to help me fray individual threads away from the rest of the white fabric.

Eventually, I turned to a simple tool to assist me in pulling apart the white cotton.

After not terribly long, the task was completed.