hamburgers, fries, and a coke

Auntia interviewed Little Nonnie a few years ago for a high school genealogy project and asked her to describe her favorite date with my dad ... oh, we'd buy hamburgers, fries, and a coke and then we'd take a walk down by the lake ... my mother still loves hamburgers and french fries and cokes, so when i found hamburger fabric and french fry fabric - this quilt just had to be made (yes, another kaleidoscope quilt ... and there are more ... several more) ... a green (lettuce) border, a red and yellow (ketchup and mustard) dog tooth border ... i had cheddar orange (cheese) and purple (red onion) borders planned ... but i realized that if i kept adding to it, the quilt was going to be huge ...... i stopped trying to build the perfect burger ... classic coke flannel fabric was perfect for the backing and binding ...... this was my first attempt on the quilting frame ... it was a nightmare ... i used mono filament (shudder) for the top thread, and ivory cotton thread in the bobbin ... i lost count of how many times i forgot to put down the presser foot ... or the thread broke ... or i lost my place on the pantograph ... needless to say, it was a mess ... still, i was kinda proud of the accomplishment and named my first attempt at free-motion quilting

the real thing

and wrote my mother's and father's initials in a heart on the naming block ... i'd never put so much love into my work ... i wrapped it up and gave the quilt to Little Nonnie for christmas in 2006...

...i found it under a pile of stuff in her utility closet when i packed up her apartment last fall ... when i asked her why, she told me that she just didn't like it ... that she really didn't like it ... she hated it...
so i brought the real thing home to live with me ... it reminds me of happier times ... when my parents would take walks down by the lake