02 October, 2006

Surprise Revealed!

The secret's out! Thank goodness, it's been exhausting!!
As you may remember, back in August I posted about a Super-Secret Surprise to come.
At that time I posed the question: have you ever created or imagined or purchased something for someone else that caused you to practically burst in happy anticipation of the gift-giving?

Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday. I made her a quilt. I think she liked it! It included digitized, embroidered dog "portraits" of all the canine companions she has had throughout her life. There were nine in all! I have entitled this quilt: "Pawprints Forever On My Heart".

I didn't meet the deadline for completion, unfortunately; and the quilting is far from done!
(Sadly, this is a common circumstance among quiltmakers!)

Nonetheless, she was quite happy knowing that soon, very soon, the quilt of her dreams and the story of her life through all the dogs she's known and loved will be hers to keep and treasure.
Happy Birthday, Mom! We all "ruff" you!

Oops, how did Hannes get in on the action? My own little companion
is always in need of some camera time, too!
Thanks for indulging him! :)
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work and get this quilt finished!

Life is Good!

7 comments:

Jim V said...

You must have learned the "quilts should be twice as tall as their recipient" tradition when you were living in Sweden.

What a beautiful work of art. I hope that any work of art I ever create would look that good when it isn't even finished yet!

You have such a talent for knowing exactly what someone would want as a gift, even though it's something they would never think to ask for.

Oops, ended a sentence with a preposition....

Jim V said...

Did Hannes strategically place himself there? Is that tail covering a competing breed?

He just looks so.... sophisticated.

Shelina said...

This is an adorable quilt! Looks like you have really thought it through.
I too have a hard time with surprise quilts, because I want to blog about all the progress and am really anxious to share it with others.

Anonymous said...

What an amazingly thoughtful and heartwarming gift! And beautiful. I actually first heard about this gift when I spoke to Grandma yesterday, and she was so very happy.

Once you finish your work, is there any chance you could take a high resolution photo and post it here? I bet everyone would love to see the images and names of all the pups!

Mrs. Goodneedle said...

Sure thing, Breathe! I'm actually taking a s-t-r-e-t-c-h break right now from "wrestling with the alligator", (machine quilting little dog-bone motifs in an allover pattern). I will take some good pics when the quilting's completed... I'll even use the flash attachment;)

Flake said...

I will help you with a slideshow that we can publish as a post, one slide per dog. Good going mom, I know she loves it!!

Mrs. Goodneedle said...

Kyle-- that would be great,a multi-media presentation! Way cool.