Two Quilts for Two Brothers

Let me remind you about this quilt, which I recently gave to a young dude named Will.  I wrote about it a couple of months ago:

Another one of my recent little kid quilts has left the house.  Again, the little kid in question was improbably enthusiastic.  He sorted carefully through the goods on offer, then picked this one. 

Then he jumped up and down, clutching the quilt with adorable enthusiasm.  Since he was doing this on a hardwood floor, he soon managed to overbalance backwards while the quilt slid forwards, bringing him down hard on his butt and the back of his head.  Brave tears ensued, but -- and this is key -- he turned for comfort to his new quilt.  You know, the one that had just betrayed him.

---

Since then, two interesting things have emerged.  One is that I pulled up the image of a quilt that I gave to Will's big brother Max a couple of years ago.  Here's what it looks like:

So that's pretty interesting, I thought.  Given a pile of six assorted quilts, Will made a beeline with no fuss or comment, but also no hesitation, to the one that looked like his big brother's.  Cute.

But then a couple of days later, I got a call from a concerned mom.  First of all, she wanted to tell me how much the boys loved their quilts, yadda yadda yadda, which I have no reason to doubt (although what's she going to say?  "The boys are completely indifferent to their quilts!"?).  That was nice to hear, but there was a concerned note in her voice, too.  After a little hemming and hawing, she reminded me that the quilt I made for Max had been personalized:

Seems that she had come down the stairs to find Will hovering hesitantly over his own new quilt, a Sharpie in one hand.  When she asked him what was up, he said he wanted his name on his quilt too.  So she suggested that rather than using permanent marker, they could ask me if I could do a little something in thread.

So there you have it: a cute kiddo story, and my mission for the upcoming start of quilt/college football season this Saturday.  Oregon hosts Arkansas State at 7:30, and Oregon State hosts something called "Nicholls State" at noon.  [[Update: Oregon State's game has been cancelled due to growing concerns over whether Nicholls State actually exists.]]  It seems way too early for it to be autumn, but there you go.