A Trip Around the World
Jessica and Grandma make a quilt...

On Wednesday night, my DD, Kim, called and asked if I could take care of Jessica on Thursday.  Jessi was running a low-grade fever and Kim wanted to keep her out of school, just to be sure.  Jessica is 5 years old and had just started kindergarten.  Kim works at the office at Jessica's school -- her brothers, Jason and Joey  also attend Masters Academy. Since it was the beginning of the school year, much work has to be done, so Kim thought that if I could take care of Jessica then she could go to work.

On Thursday morning, I had the TV on while Jessica and I had breakfast.  The Carol Duval Show was on HGTV.  Carol usually has crafts that she demonstrates, but today she had some quilts.  Jessica was interested and watched the show. Next came Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson.  Her guest was Katie Pasquini.  When they showed Katie's book "3 Dimensional Design", I told Jess that I had that book. Jess wanted to see it, so when she followed me to my sewing room to get the book, she noticed I had stacks of books.  She said to grab a few.  Oh, how she "ooohed and aaahed "over the beautiful quilts in the books.  I handed her some sticky page-markers and told her to mark the pages of quilts that she was interested in, while I was cleaning up the kitchen.

When I sat down with her again, I noticed that she had marked a lot of pages!  So, I decided to strike while the iron was hot!  "Jess, do you know we can make a quilt with colored pencils and graph paper?"  She's a typical little girl and loves to color.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

I showed her how to start with one colored square in the middle of the paper and then grab another color and color 4 squares, one at the top and the bottom of the original square and one on each side (Fig.1).  Then, another color to start our "Trip Around the World" (Fig. 2).  As she and I colored each "go-round"  (Fig. 3 - Fig. 6) of the "Trip Around the World", I would pick up the graph paper and hold it at arm's length so that we could decide which color to use next.

(A "Trip Around the World" is a name for a layout for a quilt.  In Fig. 2, yellow is a "trip. See how the yellow squares go around the center?  In Fig. 3, green is a "trip".  In Fig. 5, blue is a "trip", but since the grid is only 7 squares by 7 squares, the north, south, east and west blue squares are not shown.)
 

I also showed her how to color in 5 squares of a NinePatch (Fig. 7).  Then, showed her that if you colored 3 squares of a FourPatch, it looks like a heart (Fig. 8).  She liked that trick.  All little girls love hearts.

Then, I said, "Jess, we just made a quilt on paper (Fig. 6). Do you know we can make a quilt with fabric?"  She was ready for this! I have a box of 4" fabric squares that are already cut.  I used to use them for layouts before I had the Electric Quilt software program for designing quilts.  We separated the squares into colors.  

We laid out the squares of fabric on the floor in the Florida room, just like we colored on paper. After a round was done, we'd go step back from the quilt and look to see what color would go next.  If we didn't have a color we wanted, we would go into a drawer in my sewing room and cut 4" blocks from the fabric that was in the drawer.  We did kind of like a whack and stack method. I would whack the 4" squares and whack some of the squares in half to make triangles.  She would stack them, as to color and shape.   We talked about safety rules for rotary cutters and that little girls couldn't use them until they got bigger.  We talked about the measurements on the ruler and how important it was to cut all the blocks the same. We talked about shapes and the magic of cutting a square into 2 triangles.  It was truly important work that we were doing and she discussed everything so matter-of-factly.

As we were laying out the blocks on the floor, Jessi said, "Grandma, I like this better than coloring." She also said that it was nice that I laid down some blocks and she laid down some blocks. As she put it -- "Work goes faster when we share." At some point, we had to stop.  As Jessica said, "Grandma, we could've made the quilt bigger, but we ran out of floor..." See what I mean about the matter-of-fact talk?

Grandpa came home and said, "Grandma can make the squares and triangles into a quilt."
Don't think Jessica had any idea of that concept -- we were just playing with squares of color.
Actually, I had no concept of sewing those squares and half-square triangles into a quilt!  (Thank you, Grandpa!)

Gave Jessica the option -- could put all the blocks away (after Mom and brothers saw it) or we could sew it together as a quilt.  Jessica looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Grandma do you have anymore fabric?"  I said, "I have fabric in the closet, in the drawers, in plastic boxes, under the beds and I can always buy more."  Then, Jessi said, "Grandma, let's sew it...!"  I think I have a quilter in the family!  But, also a very considerate little girl.  She wanted to make sure that she wasn't using up the last of grandma's fabric.  Think she also wanted to make sure that we could lay out some more quilt blocks on the floor, on another visit!

I told her that it would take a long time to sew all of those squares of fabric together.  She was game. Armed with my thread snips, she sat opposite me at my sewing machine.  I sewed the rows together, assembly line fashion, and she snipped the threads of all those connecting pieces that were coming out of the sewing machine.  We talked of "things" while we "toiled".  She told me that she liked Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's, but not the chicken that her mom cooked.  I said, "But, why? Chicken is chicken."  She said, "No, McDonald's makes it crunchy and gooey and Mom makes chicken."  We talked about the magic tricks that Grandpa does. She just can't figure out how Grandpa gets a pickle out of a bowl of potato chips -- no one else can do that.  We talked about the most amazing things, while we "toiled".  As much as we talked, Jessica never faltered in her job of clipping the connecting threads.  We fell into a rhythm.  A rhythm of old time quilting bees.  A bonding.  A kinship.  A time in space that would never, ever, be forgotten.  By a grandmother.  By a granddaughter.