Daniel's Quilt

Meet my son.
Whether he's just hanging out at home . . .

collaborating with family or friends . . .

leading worship at church . . .

or on stage with the band . . .

Daniel's world is filled with guitars and music.

Sometimes, as in this photo op with his best friends, it's not about the music . . .

And sometimes, an actual guitar is optional.

So, when I saw this quilt by Robbi Joy Eklow, I knew I had to make one for Daniel.

I won't go into all the details of how it was made, mainly because that was a whole year ago and the details have become a bit fuzzy.

I can share a few blurry pictures though.

This is the diagram I started with, the pieces all numbered and colors chosen.

The plan was to use batiks but I had a piece of flame fabric that I thought would be appropriate for this piece.

Now this is serendipity. 

 I kid you not - as I was working, this little random swirl of thread caught my eye.  How cool is that?!

The quilting, of course, had to fit the music theme.  I decided to include a reference to the children's song, Dare To Be A Daniel.  It starts in the upper left hand corner and flows diagonally, through the flaming sound hole and ends in the opposite corner.

This is the back.  How many partial guitars do you see?

For the binding, I couldn't resist these references to  the phases Daniel went through as a kid. 

First, he wanted to be a train engineer.   And he discovered Thomas!

By the time he was in kindergarten, he wanted to be a paleontologist.

I'm not sure how old he was when his interest shifted upward.  Mostly it was airplanes, and thinking about being a fighter pilot.  I must admit, I'm glad that didn't last!

  

I believe the baseball interest can be blamed on credited to my dad.  He kind of introduced Daniel to the Mariners.  

As for the guitar, I like to think I'm the one who started him on that path.  I remember showing him how to play a few chords (pretty much all that I knew, really.)  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Dare to be a Daniel,

Dare to stand alone,

Dare to have a purpose firm,

Dare to make it known.