Wedding throw quilt

So, I finished the wedding quilt that I was making for a friend that I used to be close to.

It turns out that I didn't feel hurt or offended at all. It turns out that I don't need to forgive because he didn't do anything wrong. It turns out that I just feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable that my expression of enthusiasm for celebrating his marriage with this gift will seem a little over the top, like the guy jumping out of his chair cheering for the ballgame when everyone else is chatting civilly while the game just happens to be on the TV in the background.

But I've decided to steamroll through the discomfort and give him the quilt anyways. Because marriages should be celebrated, dammit! They are scary and wonderful. We spend so much energy trying to procure them and so much energy once we've achieved the married status in order to keep it functional and good. This type of energy should be supported at every turn, like the people who man the water stations at marathons.

I asked my friend if there was a piece of text that was particularly special to he and his wife. He said that "You are the Best Thing" by Ray LaMontayne was inexplicably compelling to them lately.
I took some of the lyrics and stamped them out on a canvas. I uploaded it to Spoonflower to have a yard of fabric made out of my design and then went about my jumblety business to make it into a quilt. I like the results. I have three more weddings this summer that I will do the same thing for.

Weddings are important. Any celebration that we can do to make the consequent marriages happier is worth so much more than any discomfort we might feel because of social rules.

It's nice to be in a place to be able to see the world that way.