A Different Christmas

This year our family will have a very different sort of Christmas celebration. We usually spend Christmas Eve with my Dad’s side of the family, but that tradition is changing. Recently my brother had to be moved into a memory care home. He’s had early onset alzheimer’s for almost 8 years, and my sister-in-law has taken wonderful care of him. But the time came when he needed more than she was able to provide. He’s in a very nice home in Madison. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, my parents have been living at Shorehaven for 6 months. Dad is still doing well in assisted living. Mom is in hospice there. Currently she sleeps a lot, is often confused, and the hardest part is she’s become very hard of hearing. But she’s still with us and we are grateful. So Saturday we had a small family Christmas gathering with snacks and cookies at “Dad and Mom’s place”. Mike read the Christmas story and we all praised our Lord for His goodness to us.

The other reason this Christmas will be different is because our grandson Will is a senior and I’m blessed to be able to take him on a trip and enjoy spending time (and some of his inheritance) with him. We leave this week for Italy! Seeing all the beauty of this season in Italy will be wonderful ~ especially with my sweet grandson (Mike decided not to go. After 34 years of flying all over the world ~ he just prefers to stay home 😊).

We’ll begin with a day in Rome,

and then board a cruise ship to travel around Italy, ending our adventure in Venice. We are beyond blessed! And I’m so very grateful that Will is doing well in school ~ and wants to travel with his grandma 😊. I’ve attempted to schedule blog posts for the weeks when I’m gone. If you don’t get an email from me the next 2 Sundays, please feel free to visit my blog at any time: https://www.chrisquilts.net/blog/, and hopefully the scheduled posts will be there.

And, since I like to include something of interest to quilter’s in every post, I want to share a rather odd Christmas project. I made a quilt for our son Brad when he was 9 years old using a Mary Ellen Hopkin’s pattern named Bricks and Mortar. I wrote a post about that quilt and a subsequent one back in 2019 (click here to read that post).

It was tied with wool yarn and stayed on his bed for many years. It left with him when he and Betsy married. Two years ago Betsy told me that they all loved that quilt (really!?!), but it was getting quite worn and they’d love it if I made a new version for Christmas. I was happy to oblige and had Betsy choose the fabrics. Both quilts were flannel backed.

Imagine my surprise when Trey recently told me his favorite quilt had a tear and he asked me to fix it. I had to wonder which quilt was his favorite? This is what I got:

When I picked it up I could see why he loved it. It’s been washed so many times that it’s soft, drapey and snuggly. It still looks pretty good. Some of the black blocks are faded, and the wool ties are all felted into knots. But what needed fixing? Then I turned it over:

The flannel on the back was thin and shredded. So I found some nice thick plaid flannel online to simply add a new back. Then it sat. Our family Christmas Saturday ended around noon. Dad and Mom were ready for naps and after Mike and I got home there was a lull. Hmm. Maybe I could get that quilt repaired for Christmas Eve.

The wool yarn knots had held up so well that I chose to retie it in the untied areas. This required putting it in my basting frame. I was stunned to discover that I still had some of that same yarn left from when I first tied the quilt. I stitched, cut, and knotted every dark brick.

Then I trimmed the flannel, turned under a hem, and appliquéd it all around. I’ll take a photo of Trey with his repaired favorite quilt on Christmas Eve, but I won’t be able to share it with you until Will and I return from our trip.

May your Christmas be wonderful! What joy to know that we can celebrate the birth of our Savior no matter what is going on around us ~ and He can be with us through the good and difficult times! “God bless us every one” ☺️.