BEG's Birthday Butterfly Quillow...

How I Seemingly Built a Cocoon...

So, about two months ago, it occured to me that it would soon be BEG's 27th birthday. Hmm, I thought. What should I do? What should I do? This was hard cause when I have a quandry, she's the one I call. Couldn't very well call her about her own birthday present.

It was around this time that I busted out all my stray fabric to start cutting it into quilt pieces just to get rid of it. Trust me, I have like my own personal fabric store upstairs in one of the many spare bedrooms, so this was quite an undertaking. Anyway, I was like, "I'll make her a cool quillow." She had been telling me how she couldn't find the one her mother had made her a while back. So it was practically a perfect plan...unless your a psychotic perfectionist like me! BTW: For those of you not acquainted with the quilloq concept, it's a blanket that folds into a neat, well-contained pillow.

I busted out the graph paper and colored pencils to work out a very BEG design. She likes butterflies and the color green. Easy enough, or so I thought. The design process took considerably longer than I had planned and was harder since as mentioned, she is like the other half of the design team and when I got trouble, she's the one I call. I struggled without her creative input. CPs were shitty and old, so I went out and bought two new sets (I think I actually did a post about that) and got back to work. It took about a week and had started as mostly a whim, caused by my fear that she would freeze to death in The Great White North and her of course having lost or misplaced her other one. After much work, designing and re-designing and modifying this is what I came up with...

The design was for a 19 square by 19 square blanket, making it 97 " x 97". Big enough for a queen size bed if she wanted to put it there, making the pocket a great place for her fur kids to hide, or alternately, in the hopes that she finds someone who likes her (her words), it's big enough for two and the pocket is big enough for two sets of feet. Also, since she lives in a dinky apartment with not a whole lot of room for furniture, I figured if it was big enough folded correctly, she could toss it on the floor for an impromtu seat for someone. There was ultimately a lot of thinking that went into this and without BEG's assistance no less.

So, I set out to find cool fabrics. I'm like a mad-woman at a JoAnn Fabrics. Most of the fabrics I bought were faux suede and similiar, so there was also big plans for it to be toasty warm...saving her from ever freezing to death in The Great White North, as mentioned earlier.

This was a lot of work ahead of me as the pattern for the blanket and the pocket for the reverse side, which the blanket gets folded into called for 386 fabric squares. This was a lot of cutting and omigod was my hand tired. Thank JP for sharp Fiskars!

With all the squares cut and organized by row in neat little piles on my dining room table, I got crackin'. I wanted to make sure that it was done for her birthday when KP and I go up there to poke at her cause she's the first of The Tripod to turn 27...not that me and KP are too far behind! But alas, there was a problem.

I had to crack and call her about the damned thing. I needed input on the backing color. The cat was out of the bag, but in the end, I don't know that it's such a big deal. If it was staying here, I would've put a black back on it. We decided on white for her house. I got about this far before the mystery sick showed up...

And so it sat. And then there was my sitting in the hospital all day last Saturday and well into the night, coming out with no more info than I had when I went in. Sunday, I decided that I might as well get to finishing that dang quillow since it was just a few short days until departure for BEG's birthday festivities and at least it allowed me to control something!

Monday, I finally got to it all assembled, complete with tickle-knots (anchor knots). It was around this time that it occured to hubby that it was like a cocoon that opens into a butterfly. I guess he was sort of right...

So, there it is. Finally done and ready to go. It even has it's own protective plastic zipper bag. I'm so proud of myself. The damned thing is heavier than hell and it was no easy feat with the sick and the dogs and the fact that I was basically protecting the white back with my life to keep it white. Plus it weighs a ton and there was really no easy way to deal with laying it out flat. But still, so proud!