I'd rather be Quilting

So, after three trips to the fabric store, four hundred man hours, 35 F-words, 146 little failures on my sewing machine and 147 little victories over my sewing machine, I'm almost done with Annie's baby quilt.

I'm not saying that because I want it to seem like this quilt sucked to sew; I'm just making it abundantly clear how sucky I am at sewing. (Because if Annie sewed me a quilt and then posted the above on her blog, I'd feel weirdly guilty, even though nobody asked anybody to sew a quilt, and certainly did not solicit a big bitchfest about it). So, yeah. It's about my weak skillz. Here come Sandy and the Kells to give me the smackdown, so, I mean, I don't suck! I'm just learning! From the best! The very intimidating best!

Annie is my aunt. She's six or seven years older than me (that's about the same age difference between me and Scoot, so I can never remember which). So that means her baby is my cousin, but that's weird, so we're probably going to let this kid grow up thinking I'm her mom's little sister, and that I'm her aunt, and then when she grows up she'll feel all screwed up and betrayed and it'll be funny to sit and laugh at her at family dinner. 

Then she can run cry in her quilt. Which I had to sew and unstitch an unspeakable amount of times. Here is just one of the many reasons why. 

Not clear? The underside of the ditch was face up. I like that I even pinned it (rookie move) to keep it straight. It's just awesome that I did the ENTIRE length of the quilt before noticing my stupid mistake. Bonus points, dear quilt, for showing my less-than-stellar seams. 

Sorry, baby Firth, for being the victim of my learning curve. I beg you to never look at any one part of this quilt too closely.

Rather than put my quilt in the Elaine's queue to pay them a hundred bucks and wait six weeks for them to finish the quilting, I took up a generous friend on her offer to hook me up with access to a machine, and do it myself. 

I broke many threads, jammed many things, and eventually got it quilted.

I didn't want Marianne (aka Annie) to really see the quilt yet, but there's nothing wrong with her seeing bits and pieces of it. Right? Is that bad luck? Am I seriously comparing her baby quilt to a wedding dress, like she and I are getting married and our relationship's quality hinges on this? 

For the past ten or so years, Annie and I have had an obsession with baby names. It dates back to the days I thought Kirby was the cutest and most delightfully unisex name under the sun. I still secretly think it's cute, but would never use it. We have lists of favorite, top tens, top fives, and whenever one of us hears a particularly bad babyname (so important, it's oneword), it's protocol to text it to the other. Utah is a goldmine for heinously named children.

So I felt dirty and exploitative when I texted Annie yesterday to ask if she had a name yet for her baby, cuz I was getting ready to finish the quilt and had an opportunity (someone else's cool machine) to embroider a name. Sad. Over text? I can see asking for a divorce over text, like Britney did to Kevin...and reuniting with old male best friends after long, sad stretches of absence ("Old man, is this still your number?" True Story.) but THIS...this was unceremonious. Could I seriously treat this like textable news? I thought we were renting the Wells Fargo 23rd floor for a banquet in which she made the announcement. I am actually surprised she doesn't have one nailed down officially. 

We both waited on pins n needles any time either of us had so much as an old high school FRIEND ready to spit one out, because it was fresh new discussion fodder. So this put some pressure on the occasion of either one of us, ever being put in the hot seat. She went first, thankfully.

The current frontrunning name is absolutely sweet and adorable, one I will be happy to coo and chirp at this kid her whole life. 

Speaking of babies, guess which one I get to ruin next? 

Ayla Mae! She gets to come stay with me soon. Poor thing. She's already tasted Diet Coke and displays serious emotional response when presented with a silver pop can. There's not a whole lot I can do, besides expose her to my Shrine To Superficiality (Click here see my current "body image destroyer" curriculum vitae/trail of damage) so she grows up with a few body image issues. I'll make up for it with excessive Dora and no barbie/princess. Or something.

Love you, Ayla Bo Bayla.