Baby Quilt "Friday!": Sad Days, Hippie Days

Back for another edition of Baby Quilt "Friday!" On a Monday. Or whatever day it is when I actually finish this post. (Oooh, the suspense is killing me.)

Anyhoo, here's another quilt from The Little Box of Baby Quilts, called "Sad Days, Hippie Days."

  
From The Little Box of Baby Quilts, copyright 2007 Jenny Wilding Cardon/That Patchwork Place. Machine quilted by Cheryl Brown. 

Although I had babies in mind when I designed this quilt, it was my husband who inspired it. He doesn't have hippie hair (anymore) or drive a hippie car (anymore--he's owned two Volkswagen buses). He has a hippie spirit. You know, a peace-and-love and let's-everyone-just-get-along vibe. A let's-be-happy-in-this-moment vibe.

These are incredibly rare and precious qualities to find in a human being. You will not find them in me. I have no hippie in my genes. (I do have hippie jeans, however. I am certain I will be able to fit into them again soon. Yes, very soon, I keep telling myself.)

Anyhoo, back to my husband inspiring the idea for this design. One afternoon when Jack was just a baby, I was watching him and wondering who he was going to become. What qualities would he get from me, and what qualities would he get from his dad? An amazingly accomplished self-critic, I couldn't think of any qualities of mine that I would want Jack to have, save for spelling. I'm pretty good at spelling. Except for that flub-up in the fourth grade, when I spelled bicycle wrong during the classroom spelling bee. (Bycicle. CRAP!)

My thoughts turned to my husband's hippie-like qualities. Instead of thinking about which qualities of his I would want Jack to have, I found that I had to turn my mind all around and decide which qualities of his I would NOT want Jack to have. Because my husband has that many good qualities. Which makes all of us in this family very lucky. Not that he doesn't have his flaws. For instance, he is very messy. But I think that may be a hippie thing as well.

So although this quilt was made with little ones in mind, it is in fact a secret ode to my guy. One day, honey. One day you'll get back to looking on the outside like the hippie you already are on the inside. When you don't need to play straight-laced on the job. When our schedules are ruled not by two little boys, but by the whims of the hippie winds. We'll trade in the tent trailer for another beat-up bus. You can grow out your hair. You can pierce your ears again.

Maybe I'll even figure out a way to let out my hippie jeans.

You can see more quilts from the "little box" here, watch a video about it here, and read more about each quilt here.

If you're a quilter who's into family game night, meet me back here next "Friday" for a baby quilt and a game quilt rolled into one. Oh, and a little footnote about the beginning of this post. It's still Monday. But it's not the same Monday when I started this post. It's the NEXT Monday. Sigh.