Scrap Lap

A simple lap quilt, made from scraps, at the request of my mother-in-law, Pauline. Click here for more pictures.


But wait! This quilt contains a 3-part mystery...hidden in plain sight.
First: What is the nature of the mystery?
Second: What does it mean?
Third: Why does it have that meaning.

Anyone should be able to figure out the first two parts of the mystery; only family members will be able to answer the third question (hint, hint!).

Please submit your entries to my email address (wsrhodes@gmail.com) - not as a comment on this post - by midnight December 31st.

I will pick two winners (one for questions 1 and 2, one for #3) at random from the thousands of correct entries. Each winner will receive a morsbag! I will also post the answers.

This four-patch pattern will also be used in my next beginners classes this spring (without the mystery component!). If you are interested in attending, drop me a line.

Da-da-da-da-da-dee-da!!!!! The answer to the mystery:

As indicated in the quilt's name, this is a scrap quilt. That means that all of the pieces were taken from fabric used in other quilts. The color palette was red and blue and purple. The various fabrics are used randomly throughout the 4-patch blocks. However, in the 3 highlighted rows there are some odd-looking smaller orange pieces. See them? Why are they there? Those orange pieces are the separators for the red and blue pieces that make up the mystery message. You will notice (if you look closely) that the red and blue fabrics adjoining those orange fabrics are used nowhere else in the quilt (except, as a subliminal reinforcement, in the inner and outer borders).

Notice the relative sizes of those red and blue pieces. If we "translate" them to words they would be:
square (orange separator) rectangle (separator) rectangle (separator) square
rectangle (separator) rectangle
rectangle (separator) square (separator) square (separator) square

By now, you may have deduced that this is Morse Code (part 1 of the mystery).

In more common terminology then, the message is:
dot (space) dash (space) dash (space) dot
dash (space) dash
dash (space) dot (space) dot (space) dot

Decoded, this becomes: P M B. So the quilt contains my mother-in-law's initials. (part 2 of the mystery).

But in the third part of the mystery I asked why it has this meaning?

Here is the answer: At Thanksgiving in 1995 Pauline happened to mention that she had no middle name. Her parents never gave her one when she was born. And she had always felt bad about that, as if she was missing something. So, unbeknownst to her, her 9 grandchildren (at that time) decided to rectify this gross omission. They got together and discussed some possibilities, and reached a consensus.

And on January 29, 1996, her 64th birthday, they happily presented her with their gift - a middle name. On that day she was finally christened: Pauline Margaret Baron.

And now you know the rest of the story!

Winners: um....no one got the answer. Only Pauline guessed that it was Morse Code, but could not decipher it. So the morsbags will go back in the prize closet until next time.

UPDATE: 1/31/22

Pauline asked if I could turn the lap quilt into a bed cover, by adding 24" to the width and 32" to the length.  Doing so would make the new size about 61" x 84".

We found two fabric prints: one with swirls and one with stars. The red on the front and blue on the back have the swirls; the purple and yellow have the stars.  The new binding is purple Dimples.

So how to add?  I first considered adding them using my Quilt in Sections technique. But that would have added some extra fabric on the back (for the fold-over-sew-down part). Instead, I chose to do another modification of the quilt-as-you-go method. 

The first step was to slice off the old binding (and, yes, the 1/4" of fabric underneath). Then I sewed the two left side front fabs together and attached them to the raw edge on the left front. I repeated on the right side. Then I did the same for the top and bottom fabs on the front. 

Next, I repeated that process for the fabs on the back. At that point I had the full expanded quilt.....but no batting in the new sections. So I cut batting to fit the left and right sides, and slipped those pieces in. I then quilted 4 evenly spaced lines from top to bottom using clear monofilament thread. Lastly, I repeated the same for the top and bottom: cut batting to fit, slipped them in, and quilted with 4 parallel going across. 

Expando-quilt!!!!  

In situ: