In memory of two great men

Long before I met him, my husband was in high school with two of my cousins. One of them actually shares his birthday so it's become a bit of a joke that I never forget her birthday anymore.  Earlier this year I knew I'd have her memory quilt from our grandpa's shirts finished in time for their 50th birthday and I knew if she was getting a quilt and he didn't I'd never hear the end of it (granted she's never gotten a quilt before and he'd already gotten 3). I have wanted to make him a memory quilt of his Dad's shirts as well so I made their birthday my deadline.  Most year's sewing a semi-secret project for him wouldn't be a challenge at all due to my summer vacation.  However with Covid, he's always home!  I hid in my sewing room to prepare the pieces and sewed non-stop when he took him mom for a procedure but I still had to bind it and couldn't finish that step until days before their birthday when he went camping with the "manly men."  Just a little while ago I realized that Pop became a grandfather on the same day that my father-in-law became a father, so it's appropriate to share both quilts together, right?

Pop was a tinkerer, and outdoors man so the old forest fire service truck at a local state park was ideal for those pictures. 

I asked my husband to pick where we took his Dad's shirt quilt for pictures and after many ideas he decided to do them at the Budweiser brewery in Williamsburg on our trip last weekend.  He remembers his Dad stopping the car near the brewery when he was young and pointing it out the the family-he says it smells better today than he remembered from the 80s.

Shawn talks fondly of Saturday morning cartoons with his dad, so when one of the shirts had a Looney Tunes back I knew I had to feature it somehow. I thought I’d make it the center of the quilt but when I sat down to start it I wasn’t thrilled with that, so I made it the center of the back.  

Both my grandfather and my father-in-law were wonderful men and missed very much.