our wedding quilt

My first memory of meeting Sara, my mother-in-law, was watching her carefully hand stitch together the pieces of a quilt, as she sat chatting to us on the sofa. Her familiarity and dexterity with the tiny needle & fine thread was evident; here was a woman who had thirty years experience of quilting by hand. When Sara's children left for university, she would make them a quilt. When friends, family and colleagues have babies, she'll make a quilt. When her children get married, she makes them a quilt.

One of the first things John's Mum said to us when we got engaged on March 7th last year was, I'll need at least a year to make you a quilt. We gave her 6 months, so she gave us an I.O.U on our wedding day.

This weekend, we popped in to see John's parents for a night before visiting my parents. When we arrived, Sara told us there was a present awaiting us upstairs. So we bounded up the stairs, two by two, and this is what we found:

A beautiful sea of blues & yellows, symbolic of the sea & sand on our honeymoon in Barbados, and King Size, none the less.

Look at how tiny those stitches are - I am pretty sure I could complete about four handstitched squares before my eyes started to go square.

The quilt spent its first night on our bed, and looked very at home there. I look forward to a long life ahead of us with this beautiful creation by our side. 

Sara, sending you a thousand thank yous for the thousands of stitches & hours you put into creating this.