Tristan brought me his poor pillow case several months ago… maybe 8 months ago actually. I do know he was waiting a while. Sadly Tristan held his beloved pillow case up; the one he got on his very first birthday that matches his baby quilt from birth and asked “Mom, can you fix this for me?” Sigh… I’d known this was coming. In shredded form it wasn’t even “rag pile” worthy anymore, really and he was still trying to sleep with it. “Well, not tonight; but leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do with it.” I’ve fixed things like this before with patches but this beloved bedtime friend was pretty far gone. “Maybe I’ll surprise him for Valentine’s Day” I remember thinking. By now he’d waited long enough and enquired about it with concern often enough that I figured it would make a fantastic birthday surprise for him. He was probably beginning to doubt me.
Only a magician could have “fixed” this pillow but in an attempt to preserve what I could I got my seam ripper out and with as much care as I could muster I pulled the threads out to release the blue edge ruffle… but in the end I’d had to clip it with scissors and it turned out to be just a few inches too short to use again for this purpose.
I dug through my small scraps bin for what I had left of the original fabric pieces from his quilty and pillow. I make sure to buy extra so I have some to keep around for patches which helps keep the children happy through the years. And after digging I found enough to do a whole new pillow which is really what was needed here. I didn’t have enough to do the same pieces in the same fabric combination but enough is enough! Then I went through my patterns and arrived at the labeled clear ziploc containing the sketched out shapes that created both the “Wild Goose Chase” pattern in the quilt and later the pillow cut from the brown grocery bag a decade ago now. Ironing the scraps as I trimmed them with care I made the final cuts easily with the rotary cutter and after piecing and stitching for an hour I had a brand new pillow, minus the ruffle!
Part of me is a little surprised that a 10 year old boy is still comforted by a pillow he’s had since he was toddling around. But the other part of me is glad that this sweet aspect of his personality still exists for a few hours of the day.
So how was this gift received? He was quite happy. He does miss the ruffle and commented after sleeping on it the first night that it wasn’t nearly as soft as the original. I guess it needs to be washed a few more times and maybe I’ll surprise him by adding another ruffle one of these days. My biggest surprise was having to answer the question “Where IS the other pillow?” I didn’t lie when I told him that its pieces are down on my craft table still. I didn’t dare throw them out because I had a feeling this very question was coming. He wants to keep the first pillow pieces because that is actually from his babyhood. Well, all the pieces were part of the same cuts of fabrics at one time but only the shreds have the experience I guess because I cannot seem to justify this idea well enough for Tristan. Maybe the pillow needs a secret little pocket to hold its original fibers, huh?
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
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