I lost a part of myself making this quilt. Quite literally, I made the rookie rotary cutter mistake and somehow managed to slice off a good chunk of thumb and nail.
I have been so excited about this Elizabeth Hartman Norm and Nanette pattern since she teased it last year. I knew right away it would be the perfect design to make for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. My parent’s are as adorable as gnomes and my dad’s middle name is Norman.
I decided to make 5 gnome sets, one for each decade they’ve been married, including an embroidered year starting the decade between the two gnomes. The first set represents their wedding with black and white attire. The second represents the states we lived in during their second decade, IA, IL, and NY. Technically, my family lived in WI also during that decade, but WI is not in the fabric pattern…so…
The third set represents our move (back) to Minnesota. My parents met in Minnesota and my brother was born here, so back for them, a first for me. My dad consistently wore a bright yellow sweatshirt during that decade which was cut off him when he fell off our roof during the decade that followed. My mother owned a purple sweatsuit in this decade. I don’t think she had fond memories of it, but yellow and purple or indicative of MN.
The fourth set represents my parents in retirement, my dad is an accomplished woodworker and my mom, as I’ve already mentioned, is a beautiful quilter. The final set of gnomes is on the back. It’s cheery in pink, blue and green. Pink for inner peace, blue for wisdom, and green for prosperity. They also look great in pink with their white hair.
I put a lot of thought and time into this. I was SO excited to give it to them that my excitement got the best of me as I was nearing the finish line, cutting the binding. I still don’t really know how I did it. It was fast, and something I’m seasoned enough to know much better than to do. But, since it is something I will NEVER forget, as I look at my misshaped thumb on the regular, I’m glad that the memory will attach to that quilt. Not a random scrap quilt I made on a whim just for fun. But one I cared enough about to give a chunk of my thumb for… if I’m being melodramatic.