best first mate

Long, long ago I knew a person who watched me take four months to knit a sweater and said, "why would you go to all that trouble when you can just buy a sweater from Target for ten bucks?" That statement was the equivalent of hocking a fat, yellow loogie and spitting it directly at my face. Looking back, that particular relationship should have been over right then and there.

I knew that Jon was something special when he recognized how much I love to make stuff and began asking thoughtful questions about my craft du jour. He has come to give excellent logistical advice and opinions, and nowadays I almost don't want to start a project without consulting him. When I'm so bored at the electronics store with him that I want to take a quad-core processor and knock myself unconscious, I try my very best to remember how patient he is with me at the craft store when I take six hours deciding on fabric colors.

Recently a dear friend overseas had a baby. All she had said was that the nursery was going to be turquoise and black and that it would have a pirate theme. I decided to make the baby a quilt. Jon came with me to the fabric store and helped me choose a variety of turquoise and other blue colors. And then he came up with an idea that he justified with, "no self-respecting pirate goes around without his own pirate flag."

Here is the front, with its watery theme:

 Two of our wedding colors have come from swatches of this quilt. Photos by Jonathan Muller

Here is the back, a cutesy pirate flag for an adorable pirate:

I was really afraid my friend would be offended by the skull on something for her baby. Especially after the violent reaction my mom had: She decreed that no grandbaby of hers would wear anything with a skull on it. But Jon insisted that if you're going to do pirates, you should go the full jolly roger or just stay home.