The most beautiful part of quilt-making for me is giving the quilt to the person intended and watching their reaction. In March of 2006 the president of my guild made the announcement that a young woman she knows, who lost her husband about 9 years before, is looking for someone to make a quilt for her from clothing of his that she'd saved after he passed away. I went home to think about it. Two days later I called the guild president and said I'd be interested. She made the necessary phone calls and I met with Mary (not her real name) a few weeks later.
She arrived at my home with a huge bin of his old clothing. This included t-shirts, jeans, polo shirts, oxford shirts and a few ties. As we went through the clothing I thought this would be two quilts, at least the first being a t-shirt quilt and the second a feathered star. As we sorted we talked about her husband and the important memories. I wanted, no, needed to know, a bit about this man and this family so that the quilts would reflect them as much as possible. By the end of our time together I felt confident that the project would work well.
After posting on a couple of message boards I learned that the t-shirt quilts weren’t that difficult to make. One of my friends sent directions. Although not straight set the t-shirt quilt was done rather quickly. She was thrilled and before making the second quilt she asked me to make quilt blocks for his mom and all of his brothers and sisters. I made up a couple of blocks, gave some prices and after some discussion completed the project in time for her to get them to the family members for Christmas.
On to quilt number two - the feathered star. I looked all over for a feathered star pattern; found a couple however for some reason I was having trouble going from the directions to making the actual quilt blocks. I cannot tell you how frustrating that was! I really wanted to have this quilt completed sooner rather than later. At this point it had been nearly a year since I took on the project.
In April I went to the Quilters Heritage Celebration and with a little encouragement from a friend I bought Marsh McCloskeys “Feathered Star Quilt Blocks I – Really Hard Blocks That Take a Long Time to Make”. That night I began reading the book and all Ms. McCloskey’s explanations made so much sense to me! Whew!
Later that week I cut out the pieces for 5 feathered star blocks. I did as much chain piecing as I could, keeping all of the fabrics straight. I finished one block completely and then was able to work on the other four blocks all at the same time. The whole quilt was completed within 4 weeks. I called Mary and let her know the quilt was done and she could come pick it up.
When Mary arrived, we chatted for a couple of minutes. Then I folded the quilt out on the floor for her to see. She knelt down, touching the fabric and the look on her face was something amazing. All of her memories of this man that she loved so much just swept over her face in one moment. And me, I was just honored to be there.
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