Wedding Wishes

In August 2021, my son married a lovely young woman. Kevin and Alison planned a wonderful wedding and the family and friends celebrated them on a beautiful Saturday. The weather was perfect and the hoped for outdoor ceremony came off as planned. All in all a lovely day.
Prior to the wedding I had decided to make a quilt for the kids and asked them what they would like. They both love the outdoors and have lived  by a lake and near trees for a long time. So I found an Edyta Star pattern with a simple triangle tree shape but I decided to change it a bit to offset the trees and I ended up adding some applique at the bottom. More about that decision later...
All of the trees were to be blue so I went about collecting as many different blues as I could. I asked the kids to sift out any fabrics that they did not like and set about making trees. There was lots of bias in this pattern so I used a lot of fabric starch to try to eliminate stretching. Well, I tried...
As quilters we know that sometimes we can try with all of our might but things just get stretched, yes? Well in my case,  yes! As I was piecing the trees, I was doing okay until it was time to square up. YIKES! I have been quilting a long time and I have to admit that it was not pretty at the bottom. Some of the bottom trees were close to losing their trunks! LOL! 
They say that there are no mistakes in quilting, only opportunities to be creative. So I decided to do some applique. The kids were living in a cabin on a lake with my grand dog, Floppy. So I created a small log cabin and placed it in the spot with the trunkless tree. I put two hearts on the door and some iron on paw prints leading up to it. (see photo above) I was happy and I think that it personalized that pattern even more.
If my kids read this, they will learn my secret. But it really turned into a nice addition to the quilt and a memory of where they lived in that first year of married life (and before).
So what creative opportunities have you had? I must admit that my first reaction was probably one of OH NO! But after thinking about it I believe it always helps us to grow as textile artists. As a teacher, I believe that problem solving is one of the most important skills that we should teach our children. As a quilter, I have learned much from my "opportunities". How about you? What have you learned? I would love to hear.
Until next time, 
​Trisha