The Museum Of Mom & Dad

Spoiler Alert: Mom and Dad, do not open this post until Christmas.

The Museum of Mom & Dad will get a new acquisition on December 25. In a few years when I'm more skilled in the techniques used in the piece, I might wish to withdraw it from the collection. Fat chance. There are curators who won't be swayed by any argument from an artist whose diapers they changed.

As for me, I'm the curator of the Aw Honey Collection. "Aw, honey," is what my dad says when you open a gift he made (these are always wrapped in newspaper with duct tape): He points out any flaw, however slight. I'm proud to display work he might wish to withdraw, so turnabout is fair play.

The important lesson I learned from my dad is to give those gifts despite their imperfections, and go make more.

So they'll be unwrapping a quilted table runner on Christmas. Yes, I did more simple piecing -- a time line border made from inkjet fabric I printed with satellite images of places my parents have lived.

I used free-motion quilting on this piece to echo the contours of the terrain on the farm pieces. I'd never done free-motion stitching, so before starting this project I practiced on another one -- a quilted bottle carrier for my husband's homebrew.

 The stitching on the runner is far from perfect, as you can clearly see on the back side.

Perfection is a worthy goal, but not a realistic one for this piece. For this piece, the goal was to make my dad put on his glasses to see where there are now grain bins on the farms, and for my mom to show her friends what their current home looks like from space.

Don't you suppose that people whose work is technically perfect, artistically brilliant, coveted by collectors and collected by museums start out in the Museum of Mom & Dad? Wouldn't you love to see an exhibition of Stuff They Wish Their Folks Wouldn't Drag The Neighbors In To See?