Capes, Cards, and Band-aids

The boys and I are off to the Cape for a few weeks today. I haven't been to Cape Cod in at least 20 years, and my memories of it are largely those of a child. So it will be interesting to see the changes there. The boys are excited to see their cousins and get to spend lots of time with them. I don't have a beach-themed quilt (yet), but the trip just might inspire one!

I was inspired by a greeting card to make this quilt, which I call Ode to Joy. I received the card nearly 15 years ago and had always kept it on my bulletin board because I found it to be bright and cheerful. And I decided it needed to be bigger so I could enjoy it from across the room. So I used the card as a template and created a pattern. The pieces were fused in place, then heavily machine embroidered to complete the top. The quilting added additional thread work and dimension to the piece. And I took a technique from my good friend Michelle and finished the edge with a few layers of zigzag stitching, then couched on a bright and fuzzy fiber to top it all off.


As we head off on vacation, I have to wonder if my boys have managed to sneak emergency band-aids into their backpacks. What, you've never heard of one? I'll leave you today with this layout of one of their recent adventures, in which Jeremy starred.


The journaling reads: Once upon a time, two brothers were riding their scooters down the sidewalk to the front door of their house. Their mother told them to try to fall in the grass, and not on the sidewalk, because it would hurt less. But the younger brother fell on the sidewalk. He got all scraped up above his knee, and it bled and hurt a lot. The older brother, concerned, asked him if he needed a band-aid. The younger brother said “yes” through his tears. Then the older brother asked him where he stored his emergency band-aid. (The mother had never heard of such a thing!) The younger brother let him know it was under his pillow, and the older brother ran right off and got it for him. The mother got his scrape cleaned up and put on the emergency band-aid, gave him a hug, and helped him back up to the house. And that is the story of The Emergency Band-aid.