Tie Quilts and Baby Blankets

I stayed home from a wedding this weekend since one of my puppy girls was so sick. When my husband arrived home this morning, he came bearing gifts from my girlfriend, Carol Jean. Her husband and mine have been friends for years and it was her son who got married yesterday.  I'm not sure if my husband met me before or after his friend JD (although I just asked him and he said I came first). I I had never asked.  I have known my husband all of my adult life and we have been married for almost 32 years of that life.

Carol Jean was the conservator for JD's Auntie Kay who lived in Topeka, Kansas where my husband and I did from 1986 until 1997.  Carol Jean would come to town from Dodge City, where they lived at the time, and tend to Auntie Kay's business and just have a good time visiting with her and taking her all the places she wanted to go that weekend.  Oh my - the adventures we had with her. There's a whole lot of history in Kansas if you know where to look for it.  Carol Jean always stayed at our house and through the years, we became pretty close friends which was nice since our husbands are such good friends.

Auntie Kay always had a saying, "The Good Lord gives you your looks and Father Time takes them away".  She was so funny and fun to be around.  She was young at heart and I am pleased to have a piece of Cranberry Glass and Pink Depression glass that had been hers.  I used to have quite the collection of Pink Depression Glass but I only have the pieces that are near and dear to my heart now.  That's still a significant number of pieces, but I haven't added anything to the collection in over 18 years.

Carol Jean and I both know how to sew and we had many a trip to Hancock Fabrics or anywhere they carried fabric through all the years that we've been friends.  She and JD married just the year before hubby and I did. She still does quite a lot of sewing although not as much as she used to. I only sew if I need to do a repair and my sewing machine is not working all that well due to lack of use.  So I was pleased when I saw the Tie Quilt and matching pillows she had sent home for me. The fabric was purchased many years ago during one of those afternoon excursions when we'd be visiting each other's home.  They live on a Ranch in Sharon, Kansas now and we enjoy visiting them even more.  My butterfly avatar is a photograph I took while visiting their ranch.

Now, that isn't the first time she has made me a tie quilt but the first one finally got eaten by the washing machine and came apart several years ago.  This new one is fantastic because it is longer than any others we have from her.  And there's just something special about having a blanket with your name on it (so to speak) that is comforting.  I know this holds true for at least one of my grandsons.  I had two blankets made for him before he was born and one of them is embroidered with "Xander is Mimi's Star" with a big embroidered star on it too.  The other one is nearly identical except that it doesn't have those words on it.  But when it's time for him to go to bed at night, the "right" blanket has to be there and trust me, even before he could walk or talk he knew which one was which.

I wanted to get a card made up to send out in the morning mail thanking her for the handcrafted gift.  I will treasure it and she was so busy this week taking care of wedding things for her son.  It was incredibly generous of her to make time to do it!

I wanted to participate in The Paper Players Challenge and The Tic Tac Toe Challenge this week. The Paper Players challenge is "Butterflies".  Seeing as how I love them, that was easy to include on my card. For The Tic Tac Toe Challenge, you are supposed to select three options in a row, but I don't like square cards so I included three butteflies for the 3 of a kind and I also used their Color Inspiration Image as well.


For this card, I started with a piece of Vintage Jadeite Cardstock from Papertrey Ink trimmed 1/16th of an inch smaller than 4.25 x 5.5.  I cut the Cover Plate: Twist from a piece of Navy Cardstock and adhered it over the top of the Vintage Jadeite using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  Once the glue had a few minutes to set, I ran it through my die cutting machine with the embossing pad which helps to create an inlaid look.  Using the Altenew Beautiful Day Stamp Set and coordinating dies, I heat embossed the leaves onto Vintage Jadeite, then die cut them.  I heat embossed the flower onto Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper. Both of these used Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I wanted a way to soften the background pattern and to use the flower and leaves as a frame so I die cut a Stitched Oval out of Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select Vellum from My Favorite Things Oval Stax and heat embossed the "Thanks" from Graceful Greetings using Ranger Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder.  The Butterflies were stamped onto vellum as well with the Antique Gold Embossing Powder and cut out using the coordinating punch from Stampin' Up.  I colored the back of the vellum butterflies with Copic Markers and went over the top with Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen. For the Flower, I used Nicholson's Peerless Watercolors in Sky Blue.  The leaves were glued directly to the card panel over the vellum, hiding the adhesive behind the flower and leaves so it wouldn't show.  I also cut a narrow strip of foam adhesive to put down the center of the butterflies' bodies. That allows me to "fluff" the wings up a little bit.  The flower was adhered with Thin 3D Foam Squares for easy mailing.  Once it was assembled, I adhered the entire panel to an A2 Top Folding Card Base made from Stamper's Select White.

I'll also be entering this over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog for the April Showers Bring May Flowers theme. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today.  I hope you'll come back another time.  I'll be back soon with another project to share.