I posted a photo on Facebook yesterday that brought me so much joy I just wanted to share it here. This photo is from late 2006, a couple of months before my darling Boston and his family moved from Tucson back to Youngstown. It was taken in my home in Tucson, where I hosted frequent sleepovers for Boston and his sister.
There are three facets to this photo: 1) the blanket on which he is lying; 2) the green blanket to his right; and 3) the red pajamas he is wearing.
1) When Boston’s daddy, DS#2 Tyler, was born, a friend gave me a bunting for him that zipped open into a blanket. The fabric on the inside was sort of a silky nylon, like a fine nightgown. Tyler was sick quite a bit as an infant, and would either lie on my chest in bed stroking my nightgown, or lie in his crib stroking that bunting fabric. Three years pass, the blanket gets too close to a space heater and is burned. I remake it into a pillow. A few more years pass. His father and I divorce. His father plays some sneaky tricks and gains custody. A while later I learn that his grandmother, who treated me like I was the devil’s sister, has thrown his pillow away.
Several years later I move to Washington, D.C., and remarry. My boys spend summers with me. One summer, at about age 10, Tyler asks if I’ll make him another blanket. I choose a sports car flannel for one side and a nightgown nylon knit for the other and sandwich that around a quilt batting. He loves it and sleeps with it whenever he’s with me.
Four years later, I regain custody of him and we live happily ever after. He goes to a prestigious arts boarding school, then to Youngstown State University on a full scholarship. In Youngstown he meets the woman whom he will marry and with whom he will have two beautiful children.
My life stumbles along—various husbands, relationships, houses. Always, the sports car blankie is tucked into the linen closet.
In 2003, my then-current fiancé decides he “wants to be alone” (and marries someone else 10 weeks later, but that’s a different story …), and I move to a home in far northwest Tucson, a mile away from two-year-old Boston and newborn Ridley. My new home has a bedroom just for them. On Boston’s bed is Daddy’s sports car blankie. Three years later, I move to a house in midtown Tucson. Again, Boston’s bed is covered with the blankie. Each time he sleeps at my house, he wants to hear the story of Daddy and the sports car blanket.
When he learns his family is moving back to Youngstown and realizes his grandma is not moving with them, he asks if he can take Daddy’s blankie with him to Youngstown. Of course I say of course. And he asks me to put a label on it. When I ask him what he wants on the label he thinks long and hard. The words change several times before he settles on the exact wording.
Can you zoom in on the photo and see the wording? It brings tears to my eyes every time I look at it:
“Boston’s Sleepover with Grandma
This was Daddy’s blanket when he was a little boy.”
That makes me want to just hug and hug and hug this child. Even if he is now almost my height!
Oh, by the way, this blanket came back to me last year for repairs and is again on his bed.
2. Continuing on the blankie theme: when he was born, I bought Boston a Barefoot Dreams receiving blanket and the matching mini blanket. (At that time, Barefoot Dreams made a mini blanket that matched the signature receiving blanket. They’re flannel on one side and charmeuse on the other. FABULOUS!)
Boston loved—instantly, from birth, loved—this blanket. His parents couldn’t get in the car with him without making sure the mini blanket (which came to be called his travel blanket) was along.
As he fell asleep each night and with each nap, he would rub the charmeuse binding with his thumb and forefinger. Pretty soon, the binding wore out and the blanket fell apart. I would drive to Nordstrom and buy another. After a while, Nordstrom stopped carrying them and I would search online for another, trying to find the best price. (And as you can see, these ain’t cheap blankets!)
At one point, his mother asked if I couldn’t just replace the charmeuse backing and binding. I purchased some polyester satin from Jo-Ann’s and did that. From that point on, I started making the blankets for him, letting him choose the colors he wanted. I would machine-embroider or appliqué some design on the flannel side. Once I held the iron too long on the polyester satin, so I added a little motif on that side. For Christmas one year, I made him a butter yellow satin and flannel blanket that was about 1.5 times the size of the original blankets. He’s now 12. He still sleeps with that yellow blanket. “Love” doesn’t begin to describe his feelings for and attachment to that blanket.
It warms a sewist’s (and a grandma’s) heart.
3) So, one day in Tucson on a Sleepover With Grandma, he was in my sewing room, wearing a pair of cotton pajamas I had made for him. He was holding his blanket and fingering the satin. He asked, “Can you make me a pair of pajamas out of this material?” Of course, I replied in a flash, always wanting to grant his every wish. And what color did he want? His favorite color, naturally. Red.
Thus were born the red satin pajamas. For a five-year-old.
Don’t you love the imagination of children?
So, back to the title—”Training Them Early”. For what am I training them? Why, to love fine fabrics and hand-crafted items, of course.
My sewing room is an abomination. An embarrassment. A couple of days ago, the Jazzman walked in while I was slaving over a hot sewing machine, then backed quietly out as he turned out the lights so he wouldn’t have to look at the mess. That was a suitable response. In fact, the only way I would share a photo with you was by first running it through my iPhone’s ToonCamera app so the mess wouldn’t be quite so recognizable.
