Stitching Wedding Heirlooms

I was planning to post this on Wednesday, but it has been a busy week.

For my third in a series of three posts related to handmade objects for weddings, I wanted to share a few of the pieces that I have created as gifts using cross stitch and quilting. Of course, wedding gifts can be handmade from so many objects -- wood, glass, fabric, and so on.

Years ago, when I was more active in quilting, I made a double wedding-ring quilt for my brother David and his wife May Louise. The four inner rings of the quilt are taken from fabric from different family members on each side of the family.

At about the same time, I stitched a log cabin quilt for in-laws Mark and Deirdre for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. All the pieces for this quilt came from family members, including a piece of the dress that sister Susan wore to their wedding.

When nephew Tyler and his wife Laurel were married in 2009, I stitched a small cross stitch piece to serve as our gift to the happy couple.

And finally, this year in July I completed a wedding sampler for my son and his new husband. I used the design of an 1830's family sampler that we own and included the Hebrew alphabet and symbols of the blessings that Carter and Dan used in their wedding to personalize it for them.

Handmade gifts take much more time than buying things. And it is true that some people are not very sentimental and would rather have practical gifts. But I guess I would say that quilts and decorations for our walls are actually quite practical, maybe even essential to our lives. And certainly the pleasure of giving and receiving heirloom gifts far surpasses any work or time that is spent. The work of our hands is part of the essence of who we are!