There's A Story in Every Square Inch - The Quilt

Here's the end result -- One terrific T-Shirt Quilt.  What a treasure!  There must be a better word for it but this masterpiece is really something!

Here's how we got it --

I have often looked at the Roadrunner and reflected on how many stories come from walls and contents of our motorhome.  I look at the door lock and remember when it wouldn't open.  I look at the smooth panel near the steps and remember when I caused a two foot crack in it as I tried to back over a small post.  I look at our new carpet and the excess pieces we had made into throw rugs to cover our cold ceramic floors in winter time.  There are hundreds of stories in this place!  And wonderful memories.

Now another series of evens that generated this story in the past few months.

~We have our own unique T-Shirt quilt made by super seamstress and friend Susan ~

Here's how the story goes.  You may remember our front of the dash center console tray table that her husband Kirk made for us that fits securely below our radio on the front dash.  This is one talented couple that does nice things for friends for fun.  They are amazing!

Here's one gift that we will forever cherish.  Susan had had a sewing hobby for years and taken many classes to make her professional quality Bernina machine doe some amazing things.  This project was  a labor of love and we really appreciate it.

Last September when we stopped by Oklahoma City to see Kirk and Susan, she showed us a number of T-Shirt quilts she had made for family members.  I had never heard of a T-Shirt quilt but this was intriguing.  I have often thought I have way too many T-Shirts and one thing leads to another.  Next thing I know, I have 'purged' my overflowing T-Shirt draws and those memories are gone too.  But Susan's idea had some possibilities.

I remember years ago when Pam made a couple of quilts for our two kids when they were little.  It took a long time and it was a lot of work.  I hated to have Susan go to all that trouble.  But she offered to make one for us and said more than once she would love to.

Some times you have to let friends be nice to you and after a little bit of convincing we decided it would be a really cool thing to have.  We thought about it for a couple of weeks and then asked if the offer was still on the table...

It was --- and we pulled out old T-shirts and decided which we could use and which needed to stay.  We can up with about 35 T-Shirts and boxed them up.  After she got them in the mail we discussed colors of backing materials and front matter borders and those kind of details.

We also measured our current bedspread and adjusted the numbers to come up with the exact dimensions we wanted.   We went back and forth on positioning of shirts and logos.  After she got a general idea of what we were thinking she cut of the shirts and laid them out.

Over the course of a few weeks, she got the one side done, then the other and then finished it off and boxed it up.

Here are some of the steps pictured below:

Here she has organized all the T-Shirts and cut them into sections.

Some color planning was required to enlarge with a back border for some sections to match the others.

 Things are getting into the same sizes.

 One shirt was used to make a couple sections a few times

 Some options of the layout

 The shirts were sewn onto the backing with border strips in place

 The front side pretty much done.

 A closer look at the small sections made from pocket logos

 Then the choice on the quilt sewing design:  free flow or square

I think I left out about 47 steps and how she adjusted, adapted and managed to pull it all together with this beauty.  Each time we talked on the phone or got a text, our anticipation grew.

And then the quilt arrived and we were stunned!  What a masterpiece!  Wow - we were totally awe struck.  And to Susan it was like, "Yeah there were a couple of things I had to figure out but really no big deal...".  That's how it is with people that really know what they are doing.

They make the hard and complicated things look easy!  Except it doesn't look easy and its not a hobby I would choose.  But Susan is great at it and she enjoyed doing it.

The quilt arrived like so many other packages.  In this day and age lots of packages arrive on the door step at Kelly and Jon's house.  Although it was in an Amazon box it wasn't a product we got off the internet.

The first thing you see out of the box is the cool notation section:

Roadrunner Chronicles

The Adventures of Randy and Pam Warner

Pieced and quilted by Susan Waite

December 2017

Can you see the small outline of the United States Susan sewed in there?  

Next, we wanted to see what we had and Brooks helped us open it and we unfolded in out on the floor.

Harrison was quick to help out also and he jumped right in the middle of it.

Later, we refolded it and brought it back to the motor home and spread it out on top of the bed.

Perfect!

Every square inch of this thing tells a story.

Here are a few on the corner of the bed:
- The Arches t-shirt that I got when we visited in 2011.  And we visited again in 2015.
- Right below it is a Tiffin Motorhomes T-Shirt that we picked up in 2014.  Every May they come out with a new one.  We have been to Red Bay, AL many times.  And love it each time.
- To the right of the Arches T-Shirt is one from Tobermory Village Campground which commemorates our time in Ontario Canada seeing Adam and the Bakers from 2010
- Below that is a T-Shirt Pam got from our time at the Masters in April 2013.

And so it goes -- we could go on for hours...

The larger prints are from the front or back of the T-Shirts. The smaller logos on some of the shirts come from the area over the left pocket.

Susan did a fantastic job of putting it together and used every shirt we sent here.

Thank you Susan!

That's it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles ~

Christmas came early for us and during this Holiday Season, we hope you are enjoying it and looking forward to a nice time.

Thanks for joining us today!  We would love to hear from you our readers...

Gold Manor Update #4 - Tree Removal

Another set of pictures follow which document some of the many projects Kelly and Jon commissioned to get their house and property in shape before they moved in.

During the second week after they closed on the house, the tree removal guys showed up and did their magic.  It was something to see.  Nothing better than seeing the professionals at work.

It was amazing to see the lumberjacks throw their lines and climb up into the overhanging branches.  They were up there to identify and cut off overhanging large branches that might later cause a problem.

The tree men had to evacuate vehicles from the front yard in order to remove the corner tree a couple of feet away from the house.  The tree was a large one and they cut off some branches at the start.

Then the guy climbed up the tree to position the rope in the correct place.  Once that was done, we all cleared out the of the area while the guy in the Bobcat pulled the rope tight.  Once their was the right amount of tension (and the other guy was out of the tree) another one used his large Stihl chainsaw and but a wedge into the bottom of the tree.

In not time the tree gave way, fell forward and crashed to the ground.

Then others cut off the branches which the Bobcat carried over to to the large tree chipper.

The trees were cut up in good sized lengths which we think the tree guys were going to cart back to their business and cut up for sale.

In no time, the suspect tree at the corner of the house was gone.

Logs piled up for replacement onto the log truck.

It was quite an operation.

The next project was a tree which had blown down years ago and landed across the property and into the lake.  It was another huge effort.  They cut up the portion of the tree in the yard first.

Then they removed as much of the tree that was in the lake as they could.  The steep embankment prevented the entire tree and branches from being removed at this time.

Most of it was removed, but some of the tree remained in the water.

That little Bobcat machine was amazing.  It was able to get a lot of the tree and tree limbs out of the water and drag them up onto the little bank that was a bit steep.  Then the tree guys were able to cut up the debris so it could be picked up and carried around to the front of the house where the mulch truck and log truck were.

The Bobcat was just not big enough to pull out all of the tree out of the lake.

Unfortunately, along with the fallen trees, a few stationary shrubs got cleared out as well.  The back of the boat house was covered up a little by the wild little shrubs.  Now that they are out, the back of the boat house is open to the neighbors up the hill and across the street.  We were hoping we could use the back of the boat house for some outdoor storage but since it is exposed, we'll have to find somewhere else to put things.  Don't want to clutter things up and make the property unsightly.

The log truck was filled to capacity in no time.

I didn't get any good picture but they also took out three trees in the back yard not far from where the car is in the picture below.  After they grinded stumps, they also leveled the front and back yard as well as the driveway.

The amazing thing here was not only the removal of some trees that were too near the house and failing, but also the removal of all the underbrush.  That meant the backyard became a useful backyard for the dog and the kids.  The little Bobcat smoothed the yard out and did a pretty good job of landscaping.  Once the fence is up it will be great back there.

The tree guys came back and used a heavy duty stump grinder.  The first tree they took out was just off the right corner of the house.  And there were a couple off the opposite corner of the house near the garage.

All that was done in preparation for the fence they are putting in the back yard.  More on that later.

That it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles!  Thanks for joining us today.

Gold Manor Update #3 - New Roof

The roof guys came on a day when there was lots going on.  The roof repairs included taking off two layers of shingles and replacing any sheathing that was rotted.  There were six sheets they had to replace.  Over the years of neglect, a large tree branch punched a hole in the roof.  Rain and water seeped in causing other problems but the new roof ensures that won't be an issue again.

Cars and trucks were parked everywhere in the front yard.

On the roof, Timo's crew was ripping off the two layers of shingles.

Front side, back side and eventually the boathouse. Here over the front porch you can see some of the water damage that caused wood rot.

The dumpster loaded up quickly (above).  Below, I watched with awe as one of the slightly built men carried more than one 4'x8' sheets of plywood up the ladder by himself.

Once the new plywood was down, they put the covering down and then the shingles.

At one point, I think we counted 14 vehicles on the property including the delivery truck with the hydraulic lift for the shingles.  When the roof materials truck arrived, half a dozen cars and trucks had to move out from the front to the house so the truck could move into place and use the hydraulic lift to move pallets directly from the truck to the roof.

It was pretty impressive to see how these guys went to work and got after it!  Below is a photo of the work going underway on the back side of the house.

The new roof made a remarkable difference to the look on the house.  Not to mention it removed the source of wood rot and other problems.

Two days later and another bin filled with debris, they were almost done.

Things happen so quickly and in rapid succession, its hard to keep up and remember just a couple of weeks ago, things were in complete chaos.

One more major item ticked off their checklist!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!