Quilt

I have been contemplating an idea a friend has given.  You see, I have quite a few items of Joel's clothing... more then could fit in the size of memory box I was planning on.  And I am finding I have a great reluctance to give any of them away.  They are so much more tangible, as reminders of my son, then just a picture.  Not that pictures are not super or precious.  I'd never give one of the pictures up!

But clothing can be held and felt.  There are memories in it.  But I know in my mind that a box of clothes just sitting in a quiet corner is only taking up space, getting musty, and it's not something you are going to pull out every day for the rest of your life either.  It's not practical.  Not that I think practical is the be all and end all of things.  I can be very unpractical.  Still.  It's a lot of clothing that I can't seem to get rid of.

In fact, I am resisting the urge to ask some of the people whom I gave/lend Joel's clothing to, to give said clothing BACK.  I had some really amazingly nice and cute clothes from his first year of life, and I (maybe wisely) made sure to lend it out as soon as I could.  Most likely the said people don't even have the clothing anymore, most likely they in turn passed it on, or can't remember where it is, etc.  So I am trying to not even GO there.

My friend gave me an idea.  It is a good idea.  She said she knew someone who made a quilt from her child's clothing, after he died.  Now that seems like a perfect solution.  A quilt, which could wrap around me and be felt at any time without sitting in an awkward box.  Useful, and sentimental, all at once.

So I am mulling it all over.  There are a few slight difficulties.  First one being that I'd have to steel myself to cutting up Joel's clothing.  For some reason, this seems hard.  Taking a scissor to his jammies.  It's a point of no return.  Points of no return are hard these days.

And Joel being so small and so young, his clothing is small, and covered in small child stuff.  Dinosaurs, cute aliens in spaceships, cars, and Cookie Monster.  I want it to be MY quilt.  But I sure do want to keep these emblems of my son's baby/childhood.  So this quilt would not too likely be a real "display" sort of quilt.  But then, not sure I want to display it either.

And the colours.  My favorite clothing is red, brown, black, green, and many shades of blue.  Not too sure about the final colour scheme there. 

Or how to work it out practically when some of the clothing is small, and some is larger.  So I'd have make some squares out of two pieces of fabric... and though I thought I had a lot of clothing, when arms are too small to provide fabric, and sometimes legs too, in the end, this quilt might NOT be that big.

But I think the result might be worth it... and maybe cutting up the clothing would be worth it too.  I'm pretty sure I'd be crying as I chopped up the pieces with my scissors.  That sounds painful.  But not necessarily bad.  Sometimes pain is what you go through to get a beautiful and meaningful quilt.  Just like sometimes pain is what you go through to get experience, compassion, and memories.  No love without pain.  No quilt without cutting.  So it is.

I don't know why I like the picture of him with his CPAP machine on, but I do.  It's not the cutest look, I guess, but the sight of him happily drowsy/sleeping with the machine on, the one that let him have such good health and happiness for so long, well, it's a cute picture to me, anyway.