Bedding needs

There are three things on my mind right now.

1.  We've increased from one bed to 5 beds in 12 years.
2.  We never have enough bedding.
3.  I want to make a quilt.

It's the quilt draped over the chair in our living room that brought this on. 

When we first got married we just had our own double bed.  It was easy to buy a few blankets and we were done with bedding.

After tiring of the double bed and needing a spare for visitors, we bought ourselves a queen-sized bed.  The spare then got all of our old blankets and we got new ones for ourselves.  They weren't Canadian winter-worthy though because we made that switch while living in Australia.  However, we were still set for ourselves and guests.

Then Beth came, and with her we added a crib.  A first baby invites tons of fluffy blankets as gifts, although we did notice that no one presented us with crib sheets.  (Note to self: Give sheets as baby gifts)  No offense meant to Beth, but she was a very pukey kid and lots of sheets were required unless we wanted to do daily laundry.

Then Laura came along.  Beth moved to a single and we needed new sheets and blankets again.  Humph.  By then we needed heavier blankets for ourselves as well because we were back in Canada.  All this bed expansion was getting tedious.  And we seemed to have lots of odd blankets that didn't quite fit.  Afghans and throw blankets and such that weren't long enough for a single bed.  How many throws do people really need?  We needed real blankets. 

Then Alice joined the family, taking over the crib again and moving Laura into a big bed.  More blankets required... and then Alice moved into her own big bed.

My mom has given each of the girls their own beautiful quilt.  I love them all.  However, you wouldn't believe how many blankets the kids think they need on their beds.  They have all sorts of fleece blankets, one massive down comforter on Beth's bed (although I admit the warmth isn't great because all of the down has shifted away from the centre), and last year when Laura moved to the cold basement she started throwing a sleeping bag on top of it all. 

I know every growing family goes through this, but I find it frustrating.  Somehow, some people just throw a duvet on their bed and it's done, but in our house no one seems to be happy or warm enough with that.  It's much more complicated than it needs to be, but that's the way it is around here.  One day I'll go through all of our fleeces (from birthday gifts and Girl Guides and all the odd sources of throws) and keep only the ones that truly fit on our beds. 

And then maybe I'll make my first scrappy quilt out of cottons in my sewing room.   I look at the quilting blogs, I go to historic sites and finger the stitching and admire them all.  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting closer and closer to starting my own.  And it will go on MY bed, even if it matches nothing at all in our room. 

This above quilt I picked up at a thrift shop recently.  I love it's scrappiness.  Although it's far from perfect and the colors are not terribly coordinated, I'm inspired by it.  The border has a few similar blocks to tie it together, but the centre pieces are all different patterns.  I'll never do any version of the crazy quilt section.  It has all sorts of handstitched areas and embroidered bits that I don't have the patience for (never say never, maybe).  It's made by a 70-something volunteer at the shop out of donated new cottons.  At $40, she obviously places little value on her time, but I appreciate all of the careful stitching and I've always loved knotted quilts.  It's probably all I will be able to do when I ever get around to trying. 

There is no point to this post whatsoever.  Just random things I think about while the rest of my family sleeps.