I HAD made one, and we were told to make it big enough so that "it didn't meet at the nipples" - well, mine did, so I gave it away to my smallest
daughter.So I didn't have a vest, and everyone else was very smug about wearing the vests they'd made. Also, this same coordinator "friend" of mine, had volunteered me to do a demonstration on
"raised flowers". I'd never done a "raised flower" in my life, but knew I could learn; however as time went on and I devoted ALMOST every waking moment to learning CQ stitches, I wondered how I was going to learn
to do "raised flowers".
I was also racking my brain about how to make a vest for the conference, one that I really liked. So, in one of those restless sleeps, that monopausal women seem to have, "it"
came to me. I'd make a CQ vest for the conference. I'd never done a CQ project before, but have sewn since a child. So I set at it, found an easy pattern and went from there.
The project
wasn't really so easy though, as I'd decided that I wanted this vest to commemorate our 35th anniversary, just past on April 13th. I took our wedding photo, and a photo of our 35th anniversary party, and went to
the printing shop and had them transferred onto some cream moire taffeta fabric. I cut these two pieces out first, and worked the other pieces around them.
I'd just found a lovely small fan pattern,
and I cut this out, and used it for the lower front "V". Then I cut the pattern "down", and put the smaller version on the other side close to the top. Above the small fan, I put in a yellow piece of dupioni
silk, and embroidered "35" there. I did some ribbon embroidery, metallic embroidery, lots of charms, heart beads and charms, a telephone button, a high heeled shoe button, and a lock and a key charm.
These all had meaning to our courtship and our lives over the last 35 years. The high heeled shoes were what probably got "him" in the first place - remember those sexy high heeled shoes in the '60's??? My
husband-to-be lived in a small little town where there were no phones in 1963, and so the pay phone - "your 3 minutes are up - signal when through" - played an important part in our courtship.
The key and
the lock are the parts that we have to have available to keep the marriage going, lots of hearts for lots of love and forgiveness. I also have a crocheted basket - I'm an avid crocheter - full of embroidered
flowers. I love gardening, and there's a butterfly charm there that I got from Barby Oxborrow. The other embroidered flower bouquet has a dragonfly charm in it, just a tiny one. The back of the vest is
the same fabric as the skirt, which I also made - it's a kind of olive green with embroidered leaves on it.
At the conference, about 155 attended, and I had SO MANY compliments - and several took my
picture. I was the only one there with a CQ vest on. I ended up doing my demo on CQing - at the last guild meeting I got up enough nerve to as if I could change the subject of my demonstration. There
was a dead silence when I asked if I could do CQing. However, they're a great bunch of "girls" and they "humored me" and let me do it. The whole day turned out lots of fun, and so many wonderful quilted
items there, all the work of creative women's hands.
