Papas Overalls

 

We all have the special person in our life that makes the difference.  The one you can always depend on, who is always there and leads you in the right direction. For my husband and my boys, it was their Grandaddy Robert Lee Humbert, AKA “little papa”.  He passed away a few years.  My husbands cousin asked me to make a quilt from his clothes. So we went and collected a bunch.

     Fast forward a few years and I made her quilt and just sat on the rest.  Last year,  as I was cleaning out my craft room, I decided to make a jean quilt with his overalls and jeans. I am oddly one of those that goes with my heart and mind. I rarely use a pattern and invent my own.

     I cut a bunch of his jeans up into strips.  The largest square that could be cut to was 12.5 inches. So I cut out enough pieces of all sizes.  I then decided to add random pieces of fabric and shirts until each made a 12.5 inch square. All of the fabric used was fabric that also looked like shirting material.

     I decided to lay the quilt out corner to corner from the smallest original square to the largest. To kinda appear like it grew or a sunrise.

     For the backing I used a handkerchief replicating fabric.  Granddaddy always had one in his pocket.  When I saw it, I knew it was perfect!

I put it together last year and pinned it.  I just couldn’t decide how to quilt it. So I let it sit for about 6 months.  Frankie started talking about his Grandaddy everyday around the anniversary of his death.  I picked it up and knew just what to do.  I used a 12.5 inch quilting ruler to start randomly quilting each block with straight lines a little different.

     The binding is a jean material.

The photos are taken at lake Moultrie.  You can barely see the power plant in the background.  He worked at another up the road a bit.  His grandsons followed and 2 work at that plant and now his great grandson is also working in the power industry.