That One Special Gift - Journal Your Christmas

This year has been a rough one.  My counts have bounced up and down like a yo-yo...taking my emotions with them.  I wanted to make something special for everyone in my family, but as the months slipped by I fell back on purchased gifts. Even those have taken longer than I wanted to purchase.  Last year was a good year.  I made the perfect gift and was there to watch my Bug open it.  I had talked for at least a couple of years about making a T-shirt quilt for the Bug.  We collect T-shirts everywhere we go and because she keeps growing she was sure to grow out of some of them.   I made a trip to the local JoAnn's and picked up some basic quilting supplies.  I think I have said before that I am not worth much behind a sewing machine.  I can sew in a straight line and now I can make a few curves....but that's it.  It was important to me for the Bug to have something to snuggle up under...a tangible memory of our most treasured vacations.  The Bug spent a week with her Dad so that gave me plenty of time to cut each shirt and lay them out so that the colors looked nice together.  I had time to sit in from of the sewing machine and stitch all the squares together into one huge square.  Then in modern day quilting bee style I enlisted the help of my aunt and my mom to stitch the top to the bottom.  We used some of my favorite buttons and stitched the corner of every other square.  It was lovely to sit together...look at all the shirts...tell stories about the trips...laugh at nothing in particular.  It was a good day.  Then the quilt was finished and boxed up in the largest box I could find.  Once I had it wrapped and under the tree I got nervous.  I thought will she care as much about these shirts as I do...will she even want this gift?  I had to wait.  Christmas morning she opened the biggest box first...and she was excited.  Really and truly excited about the gift.  I made it, and she will have it forever.  Right now it sits on the back of a chair in her room...she cover up with it when she doesn't feel like unmaking her bed.  so for now that is the special gift I planned for and gave to a loved one!  What about you guys?

To the moon and back,
Sarah

here are the shirts that made the cut!

Rosie made it into this one! 

This is the whale I made out of a sweatshirt
from our trip to New York!

Here we go!

I think she might like it!

My silly Bug...ornaments go on the tree!